Fascinating & very readable - Rated 
Goebells famously said if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. Which is exactly what Irving has been doing for years. For years Irving has promoted himself as a much more thorough historian than 'mainstream' historians, and has claimed that there is no real evidence that the Holocaust ever happened. Unfortunately when his so-called evidence and methods were criticised by genuine historians, it appeared (superficially) that it was only their word against his - ie as if there was a genuine doubt. So his propaganda was a tool to legitimise holocaust-denial.
Then foolishly he sued one of his critics for libel. Finally this meant that he was put under the spotlight in a court of law. (Where the rules of evidence are in fact very similar to the rules of historical evidence). This book gives a detailed, objective & fascinating account of the trial in which Irving was definitively proven to have deliberately twisted, fabricated or ignored evidence to suit his own agenda. In other words he was exposed for the liar he is. Incredibly he lied throughout the trial too - regularly misquoting the witnesses and reports in his inept attempt to represent himself. And even more incredibly he continued to lie after the trial too, in interviews portraying himself as the victim whose right to free speech had been denied. (Remember it was actually HIM who was trying to silence his critics).
The sad thing is that he & others like him are still telling the same lies.
A super read that's a real eye-opener! - Rated
Richard Evans objectively and in detail publishes his findings in this book on the Lipstad/Irving trial. It is a great read that really gets your mind going on how some people try to disgustingly distort history to fuel their own lies and get what they want. It is easy to read with a wide range of sources included. Recommended to students studying history or even anybody who's interested in the discovery of truth! The book undoubtably shows that Irving was no more than a vile liar.
A brilliant book - Rated 
Richard J. Evans is one of the most distinguished English-language historians of the Nazi era, and as such he was called as an expert witness by the defence team in the Irving-Lipstadt libel trial. The American historian Deborah Lipstadt had described Irving in her book 'Denying the Holocaust' as a holocaust-denier, and as a result Irving had sued her and her UK publisher, Penguin, for libel.
I don't personally consider Lipstadt's book to be very good. She confuses criticism of Israeli government policy with anti-Semitism and she strongly implies that Noam Chomsky is a holocaust denier, which he isn't. However, saying the same thing about David Irving was fair comment, as the trial amply demonstrated. Evans' book is an account of how he and his research team were able to find a mountain of evidence that Irving consistently interpreted, presented and constructed evidence that diminished the scale and nature of the Holocaust. Irving is fond of making creepily jokey speeches to neo-Nazi groups and seems to have a bizarre personal affection for Adolf Hitler: the comic high point of an otherwise arduous and rather depressing trial was when he accidentally addressed the judge as 'Mein Führer...'.
In the end, the judge found for Penguin and Lipstadt and effectively stripped Irving of all shreds of credibility as a serious and responsible historian. It was a good day for justice and Evans' account of it is gripping, even if you already know the outcome. It's certainly better written than most journalistic accounts; the media were rather too sympathetic to Irving, agreeing with his presentation of himself as the victim, as though somebody were denying his right to publish his relentlessly inaccurate and slanted books, when in fact he was the true threat to freedom of speech in that the libel action was an attempt to suppress criticism of himself.
Telling the Truth - Rated
In this book which covers Richad Evans's role as an expert witness for the defence in the 2000 libel case brought by the controversial historical writer David Irving; against the publishers and author of a book , severely critical of so-called Holocaust deniers. Early on in her book "Denying the Holocaust: the Growing Assault on Truth and Memory" the author,Deborah Lipstadt had cited Irving as deserving of that very appelation. Evans's book, whilst written for the non academic audience, goes far beyong a mere summary of his role in that case. In an objective and clearly written book, he not only demolishes Irving's claim of being and having been an objective historian for over thirty years. Rather, the account given by Richard Evans is one in which his views of David Irvine which appear to be those, nothing more or less, than a blinkered right wing apologist for Hitler's National Socialist regime, who was and had sacrificed his scholarlly objectivity and judgement on the altar of his far-right racist beliefs. This is nothing short of a complete exposition of the academic Historians role and indeed the role of History in society itself, in particular any society that seeks to understand its past by the application of reason,as far as is possible and by the way of truth, such as can be deduced from an examination and analysis of all the available evidence. Evans' book fulfil;s a vital role in shedding light on just why History is such a vital part of our culture and why it should never be sacrificed to the gods of whatever persuasion who would seek to hide behind obfuscation, distortion abd lies.
An important book - Rated
This is an important book. Firstly because of the intrinsic importance of the Holocaust itself. Secondly it is a great study in how history should be done.
Ultimately there is an objective truth "out there" and the murder of six million people is not something any decent human being can just have an 'opinion' about. Either they were murdered in a systematic and planned way or there was no Holocaust. Since this trail we have the truth reaffirmed and the memory of the dead is not buried under lies.
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