Re: [Marxism] Ward Churchill Redux

["Ian Pace" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Finkelstein has come up a few times in this thread. I've read most of his 
work, and whilst his areas are not my expertise, I think I know enough about 
them (not least from having read most of the writings of others both pro and 
contra) to say that on the whole his level of scholarship is very high 
indeed. His stuff on the Holocaust Industry is the most problematic in this 
respect; overall it seems to reveal a relative lack of real knowledge of the 
(huge) amount of scholarship on this area that has been undertaken in the 
last few decades, and he's woefully wrong when he mentions David Irving 
(taking some quotes of Hilberg out of context, and relying too much on the 
verdict of Gordon Craig (who doesn't have a detailed knowledge of particular 
areas) whilst ignoring plenty of other highly knowledgeable scholars on the 
same subjects who know that Irving's work is a fraud). He does a good job on 
analysing the internal contradictions in Goldhagen, but is on shakier ground 
when entering into the wider arena of Holocaust scholarship. What is a 
bigger problem in Finkelstein's work is his tendency to resort to highly 
charged, intemperate language which skirts around the boundaries of old 
clichés - I know this isn't his intentions, but it plays so obviously into 
the hands of his enemies. The information he uncovers and sifts through is 
devastating and extremely thoroughly researched, though.

Solidarity,
Ian 


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu