Christopher Browning

The foreign affairs commentator explains why US presidents have less room to manoeuvre on foreign policy than they think, and why President Obama had to set aside his “minimalist” inclinations.

In the years immediately after World War II, the Holocaust was little studied. That all changed with the publication of Raul Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews. Steven Katz, professor of Jewish Holocaust Studies at Boston University and former Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, introduces the best books on the Holocaust.    

In the 20th century, Germany suffered defeat in two world wars and withstood two kinds of dictatorship. Yet today it is Europe’s strongest economy. Hester Vaizey, fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and author of Born in the GDR, selects five brilliant books on a tumultuous century.

Genocide isn’t the preserve of fanatics and racist thugs – it’s part of human nature, says the historian. He tells us how it happens, who denies it and where it could return