A bold new exploration that answers the most commonly asked questions about the Holocaust. Despite the outpouring of books, movies, museums, memorials, and courses devoted to the Holocaust, a coherent explanation of why such ghastly carnage erupted from the heart of civilized Europe in the twentieth century still seems elusive even seventy years later. Numerous theories have sprouted in an attempt to console ourselves and to point the blame in emotionally...

The Old Man and the Sea is a deceptively simple work. An old man goes fishing. He catches a giant marlin after much struggle. Sharks attack and destroy the fish. The old man is left with the bare bones of the fish―a Monday morning “fish story.” But much lies beneath the surface. The action is condensed and presented in carefully crafted images, in words and details selected because of their multivalent meanings, and in several external narrative...