The truth will out! - Rated 
This book should be avoided at all costs, especially by the discerning reader interested in enhancing their understanding of the past via works of serious history. Gladly, I do not have to write too much about the book itself, as Finkelstein and Birn have already conducted a thorough study refuting its validity Nation on Trial: the Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth. Please bear in mind that, while Finkelstein and Birn did not receive any prizes for a work of non-fiction for their very necessary and important endeavour, one of the key observations to arise about Goldhagen's book (and they don't get any more important for a serious historian) is the selective use of historical testimony on the author's part. To put it bluntly, Goldhagen's 'phenomenal scholarship' (Schama) amounted to simply citing only the few hundred sources that supported the central thesis of his book, while he conveniently ignored many thousands of examples which demonstrated a contrary point of view, and which might easily have led, therefore, to a radically opposed set of conclusions. It may seem ironic to some readers, but I, for one, think the views expressed by Professor Eric Hobsbawm when reviewing Finkelstein and Birn's study demonstrate most clearly the importance of their book and why you should read it rather than Goldhagen's unbalanced and misleading exercise in charlatanism: "All reader's of Goldhagen's controversial book should take note of these much-needed studies, which, in line with serious historians, convincingly and authoritatively dismantle its arguments." For that matter, anyone seriously interested in getting to grips with serious studies of atrocity and the collapse of civilization in wartime Europe might wish to consider reading Bacque's seminal account of 'the mass deaths of disarmed German soldiers and civilians under General Eisenhower's Command' in French and American-controlled concentration camps during the years immediately following the end of the Second World War Other Losses: An Investigation Into the Mass Deaths of German Prisoners at the Hands of the French and Americans After World War II. It certainly constitutes 'astonishing, disturbing, and riveting' reading.
I couldn't even get past the first 20 pages... - Rated
I haven't really got anything to say on the arguments contained within this book, simply as i can't read it! I can't bear ploughing through books written by someone who takes 2 pages to describe what could be more concisely put into a single paragraph. Is it really necessary to constantly use overly long words just for the sake of it, as Goldhagen does? To sound clever and garner the respect of the academic community?
I don't know, maybe i'm a bit thicker than i gave myself credit for. I studied Nazi Germany at A-Level and have read numerous books on the subject and usually struggle to put them down. This is the first one that fixed my Insomnia!
A psychological tour de force. - Rated 
This book is truly exceptional. An original. Just read it and digest this man's irresitable logic. Goldhagen is a genius. He has married the science of history to those of psychoanalysis and psychiatry. What is clever about this book is how he makes the reader start thinking about the subject afresh from an analytical view point. Those without some background in psychiatry will have difficulty in accepting Goldhagen's descriptions of the delusions that underlay the actions of Germans and other Jew haters. The very concept of delusion is one that most people are ignorant of or if they are aware of will only ascribe to the obviously mentally ill. Goldhagen's argument is that Germans and others did the things they did willingly because they believed certain things about Jews. Jew hatred is still with us and this book will go a long way to explaining modern forms as well, particularly in the Arab world today. Superb. I wish Amazon would allow more than five stars.
Laughably bad - Rated
"Barely rises to the comical" is Norman Finkelstien's view of Goldhagen's work,and it's hard to disagree with that verdict.The basic thesis is that Germans,alone of the peoples of Europe,had such an ingrained anti-semitism that they alone were capable of the mass murder of Europe's Jews in the 1940s.
Apart from the racism implicit in this idea(racism somehow is fine when directed at Germans)there are several major issues that undermine this view.Why did any Jews live in Germany before 1933 if they were surrounded on all sides by anti-semites?Why were many of the perpretators of the Holocaust pro- German collaborators,but not themselves Germans?Finally,if the German people were somehow almost genetically anti-semitic,why did anti-semitism virtually disappear from Germany after 1945?Goldhagen has no answers to these questions.
Finally,and bizarrely,Godhagen talks at one point of "philosemitic anti-semites".This seems to mean Germans who supported Jewish assimilation into German culture and so contributed to Jews distancing themselves from their Jewish roots.If you took Goldhagen seriously,you'd believe that Jews themselves had nothing to do with this process,that assimilation was somehow a dastardly anti-semitic plot.
"Abysmal rubbish" is putting it mildly,and it's a pity,as the Holocaust is an imprtant subject that deserves serious study.Try Martin Gilbert's one volume history of the Holocaust if you want a good introduction to the subject.Avoid this,and warn your friends and family against it too.
Ugly Sub-Text to the The World's Most Terrible Crime - Rated
The essential point to be gleaned from this tortuous book is quite simple: it's OK to be racist when you are pinning the label on Germans. Goldhagen seems seriously to believe that only the Germans could have committed such an atrocity on such a scale. Goldhagen, like the apologists for Holocaust Memorial Day, seems to think that the Nazis' crime was unique. In quantative terms this is true, but ethics and morality are not statistically variable: it is the intent to wipe out a particular sub-group of humankind which is the crime, and it applies whether the intent is to kill a hundred people, or a hundred million people. Ask the proponents of Holocaust Memorial Day why the Massacre of the Armenians in 1915 is not commemorated. They obfuscate: statistically it does not "measure up". In reality it is because of a wish not offend Turkey. No wonder governments are turning their back on the evnts in Darfur.
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