The Future of a Negation: Reflections on the Question of Genocide (Texts and Contexts)

The Future of a Negation is a crucial statement on the Holocaust—and on Holocaust denial—from Alain Finkielkraut, one of the most acclaimed and influential intellectuals in contemporary Europe.

The book examines the Holocaust, its origins in modern European thought and politics, and recent “revisionist” attempts to deny its full dimensions and, in some cases, its very existence as historical fact. Finkielkraut’s central topic is the impulse toward “negation” of the Nazi horrors: the arguments made by many people, of varying political orientations, that “the gas chambers are a hoax or, in any case, an unverifiable rumor.” In addition, Finkielkraut looks at other instances of twentieth-century mass murder and at arguments made by contemporary politicians and intellectuals that similarly deny the full extent of these other atrocities. An original, fearless book, The Future of a Negation is an essential contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust and of genocidal politics and thought in our century.

Alain Finkielkraut’s other works include The Imaginary Jew (Nebraska 1994) and The Wisdom of Love (Nebraska 1997). Mary Byrd Kelly is a lecturer in humanities and western civilization at the University of Kansas and the translator of Tzvetan Todorov’s A French Tragedy: Scenes of Civil War, Summer 1944. Richard J. Golsan is an associate professor of French at Texas A&M University.