After his major, much-discussed book 'Bloodlands,' historian Timothy Snyder tells the story of the Holocaust from a new perspective in 'Black Earth.' He shows that the killings did not primarily take place in Auschwitz and the other extermination camps. Far more people were shot on the spot in Eastern Europe and buried in mass graves. The murder of the Jews was not a bureaucratic process devised and controlled in German offices, but rather the outbreak of an unleashed dynamic of violence. Snyder describes what happened, how it happened, and why. He concludes with a warning, as we are not as far removed from the thinking that enabled the Holocaust as we might believe. "Timothy Snyder's bold new perspective on the Holocaust... leads to equally thought-provoking and disturbing conclusions for today's world." Ian Kershaw.