Anthony McElligott & Jeffrey Herf 
Antisemitism Before and Since the Holocaust 
Altered Contexts and Recent Perspectives

Divided into five discrete sections, this book examines the issue of Holocaust denial, and in some cases ‘Holocaust inversion’ in North America, Europe, and the Middle East and its relationship to the history of antisemitism before and since the Holocaust. It thus offers both a historical and contemporary perspective. This volume includes observations by leading scholars, delivering powerful, even controversial essays by scholars who are reporting from the ‘frontline.’ It offers a discussion on the relationship between Christianity and Islam, as well as the historical and contemporary issues of antisemitism in the USA, Europe, and the Middle East. This book explores how all of these issues contribute consciously or otherwise to contemporary antisemitism. The chapters of this volume do not necessarily provide a unity of argument – nor should they. Instead, they expose the plurality of positions within the academy and reflect the robust discussions that occur on the subject. 

Table of Content

1. Introduction

I. Two Preliminary Observations


2. A Few Observations on Holocaust Denial and Antisemitism


3. Antisemitism and Holocaust Inversion


II. Religion


4. An ‘Indelible Stigma?’ Christianity and Antisemitism


5. ‘Every Sane Thinker Must be an Anti-Semite:’ Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial in the Theology of Radical Catholic Traditionalists


6. Religion, Prejudice and Annihilation: The Case of Traditional Islamic Judeophobia and its Transformation into the Modern Islamist Antisemitism


III. Historical and Contemporary Political Arenas


7. Jews, Engagement in the Nation-State and Political Antisemitism


8. Nazi Propaganda to the Arab World during World War II and the Holocaust and its After Effects


9. Iranian Anti-Antisemitism and the Holocaust


10. Antisemitism in Contemporary Germany


11. Antisemitism in Britain: Continuity and the Absence of a Resurgence?


IV. Metaphor and Discourse


12. ‘Stealing the Holocaust from the Jews?’ – The Holocaust as a Metaphor in the Public Discourse


13. Soft Denial in Different Political and Social Areas on the Web


V. Two Further Observations


14. Five Reflections on Holocaust Denial and the De-legitimation of Israel


15. Ex Malo Bono: Does this Latin Proverb Apply to Holocaust Denial? The Cunning of Reason.

About the author

Anthony Mc Elligott is founding Professor of History and Head of Department at the University of Limerick, Ireland. 




Jeffrey Herf is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland in College Park.