The Unmasterable Past

Maier has written what is the best book available on the tangled and acrimonious debate among the German historians. It is incisive in its analysis of the arguments on all sides of the debate and admirably objective in its assessment of them. -- Gordon Craig * New York Review of Books *
A thorough and sensitive reflection on the ‘historians’ conflict’ about the character and significance of Nazism that erupted in West Germany in 1986… [Maier contributes] to the understanding of how Germans are still trying to integrate the Third Reich into a vision of a democratic future, and into a cohesive national identity for Germany. -- Leon Botstein * New Republic *
A full depiction of the continuing controversy within the Federal German Republic about the nation’s murderous past and haunted present… For the very large segment of the American public that does not read German, the book is a discreet Baedeker to very unfamiliar—and often ugly—territory. -- Norman Birnbaum * The Nation *
A major piece of intellectual history, rich in both methodological and philosophical insights… It is the most compelling examination of the writing about the Holocaust that I have encountered. -- Thomas Childers, University of Pennsylvania