An abridged edition of Saul Friedlander's definitive two-volume history of the Holocaust: THE YEARS OF PERSECUTION and THE YEARS OF EXTERMINATION.

An abridged edition of Saul Friedlander's definitive two-volume history of the Holocaust: THE YEARS OF PERSECUTION and THE YEARS OF EXTERMINATION.

Saul Friedlander's historical masterpiece is perhaps the richest examination of the Holocaust yet written, and, crucially, one that never loses sight of the experiences of individuals in its discussion of Nazi politics and the terrible statistics and technological and administrative sophistication of the Final Solution.

The book's first part, dealing with the National Socialist campaign of oppression, restores the voices of Jews who were engulfed in an increasingly horrifying reality following the Nazi accession to power. Friedländer also provides the accounts of the persecutors themselves - and, perhaps most telling of all, the testimonies of ordinary German citizens. The second part covers the German extermination policies that resulted in the murder of six million European Jews.

"This is a hideous history described with a blend of exemplary scholarship, spiritual detachment and intellectual humility that deserves the very widest readership" - DAILY TELEGRAPH

"Friedlander is a world authority on the holocaust but he is also a survivor... his intellectual discipline may be that of the historian but his writing is animated by the passion of memory that only his generation can fully express" - OBSERVER

"By the end we understand the events better than any previous historian has managed to explain it, while still feeling bewildered, belittled, and incredulous that it happened, let alone that it happened to him" - LITERARY REVIEW

"An account of unparalleled vividness and power that reads like a novel... A masterpiece that will endure" - NEW YORK TIMES

"This will be the standard work for many years to come" - THE TIMES

"Expressive and forceful; it's difficult to imagine a more comprehensive book about the Holocaust than this" - SUNDAY BUSINESS POST