Title: The world Hitler never made : alternate history and the memory of Nazism /
Authors: Rosenfeld, Gavriel David, 1967-
Publisher: Cambridge University Press,
Year: 2005
Subjects: World War, 1939-1945 Germany.; Imaginary histories History and criticism.; Alternative histories (Fiction) History and criticism.; National characteristics.; Collective memory.
Abstract: "Gavriel D. Rosenfeld's pioneering study explores why counterfactual questions on the subject of Nazism have proliferated in recent years within Western popular culture. Examining a wide range of novels, short stories, films, television programs, plays, comic books, and scholarly essays that have appeared in Great Britain, the United States, and Germany since 1945, Rosenfeld shows how the portrayal of historical events that never happened reflects the evolving memory of the Third Reich's real historical legacy. He concludes that the shifting representations of Nazism in works of alternate history, as well as the popular reactions to them, highlights their subversive role in promoting the normalization of the Nazi past in Western memory."--Jacket.
Contents: Great Britain defeated : between resistance and collaboration -- The United States and the dilemmas of military intervention -- Germany's wartime triumph : from dystopia to normalcy -- Other nations : a dissenting view -- The fugitive Führer and the search for justice -- The world without Hitler : better or worse? -- Hypothetical holocausts and the mistrust of memory.