Black Earth

The Holocaust as History and Warning

By: Timothy Snyder

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “[Timothy] Snyder identifies the conditions that allowed the Holocaust—conditions our society today shares. . . . He certainly couldn’t be more right about our world.”—The New Republic

A “gripping [and] disturbingly vivid” (The Wall Street Journal) portrait of the defining tragedy of our time, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of On Tyranny

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—The Washington Post, The Economist, Publishers Weekly

In this epic history of extermination and survival, Timothy Snyder presents a new explanation of the great atrocity of the twentieth century, and reveals the risks that we face in the twenty-first. Based on untapped sources from eastern Europe and forgotten testimonies from Jewish survivors, Black Earth recounts the mass murder of the Jews as an event that is still close to us, more comprehensible than we would like to think and thus all the more terrifying.

By overlooking the lessons of the Holocaust, Snyder concludes, we have misunderstood modernity and endangered the future. The early twenty-first century is coming to resemble the early twentieth, as growing preoccupations with food and water accompany ideological challenges to global order. Our world is closer to Hitler’s than we like to admit, and saving it requires us to see the Holocaust as it was—and ourselves as we are.

Groundbreaking, authoritative, and utterly absorbing, Black Earth reveals a Holocaust that is not only history but warning.

New York Times Editors’ Choice • Finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize; the Mark Lynton History Prize; the Arthur Ross Book Award

Critic reviews

“Clear-eyed . . . Arresting . . . An unorthodox and provocative account . . . Snyder is admirably relentless.”—The New Yorker

“Black Earth is mesmerizing . . . Remarkable . . . Gripping . . . Disturbingly vivid . . . Mr. Snyder is sometimes mordant, often shocked, always probing.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Revelatory . . . Evocative . . . Most relevant today.”—The Atlantic

“An unflinching look at the Holocaust . . . Mr. Snyder is a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present.” —The New York Times

“Snyder’s historical account has a vital contemporary lesson. . . . It’s a testament to his intellectual and moral resources that he can so deeply contemplate this horrific past in ways that strengthen his commitment to building a future based on law, rights, and citizenship.”—The Washington Post

“Black Earth elucidates human catastrophe in regions with which a Western audience needs to become familiar.”—The New York Times Book Review

“An impressive reassessment of the Holocaust, which steers an assured course [and] challenges readers to reassess what they think they know and believe . . . Black Earth will prove uncomfortable reading for many who hew to cherished but mythical elements of Holocaust history.”—The Economist

“Excellent in every respect . . . Although I read widely about the Holocaust, I learned something new in every chapter. The multilingual Snyder has mined contemporaneous Eastern European sources that are often overlooked.”—Stephen Carter, Bloomberg

“In Black Earth, a book of the greatest importance, Snyder now forces us to look afresh at these monumental crimes. Written with searing intellectual honesty, his new study goes much deeper than Bloodlands in its analysis, showing how the two regimes fed off each other.”—Antony Beevor, The Sunday Times

Very Informative

This was at times very hard to listen to as you might expect given the subject matter, but it was very well researched and fascinating. It was truly terrifying how little we’ve learned from the past, and how quickly we could be doomed to repeat it.

Immortal and urgent

Immediat and urgent reading of immortal lessonss that point out the leasons of the past and shine a light on the present and future

Highly Recommended!

There has clearly been a sharp increase in the number of books on this topic as of late. And so an argument could well be made that there, too, has been in increase in peoples' interest in the subject. It would be easy to toss up a handful of reasons for this, including the apparent rise in authoritarian tendencies globally. However, having worked in the field of publishing for many years, I have noticed that the number of books on the history of WW II -- and the Third Reich in particular -- ebbs and flows in quite regular waves. Unfortunately, the vast majority of such books as these have very little to offer the student in terms of new information and insight. Most of them are little more than books about other books. One major exception is this one.

"Black Earth" is not simply a book about books. This is the first one to come along in decades that offers very thoughtful and truly fresh insight.
So much has been written about the Nazis, Hitler, and the Holocaust by now that, as far as historical details are concerned, it isn't likely anything heretofore undiscovered will turn up. Nevertheless, Timothy Snyder's effort here certainly belongs in the scholar's library not for any new historical details per se (although there are some); but for its fresh insight, both brilliantly thought out, and masterfully written.

I highly recommend this audiobook especially to those among you who already have a solid foundation on the history of the Third Reich. You have a real gem here. You will find yourself listening to it almost like a student new to the subject (rather than picking it apart and almost unconsciously checking it for errors as one does with so many books of this kind).

Perhaps Prof. Snyder’s best work…

Black Earth was well received by non historians (like I) and historians alike. Some in the academic world have expressed issues with Snyder’s analysis and some of his conclusions. These are pertinent but only to the extent that they provoke thought.

In my reading, I cannot recall any previous book on general history for the non-technical audience that is so eloquent, so haunting, and so poetic. It is a book that might not alter your emotional view of The Shoa….but it will take your face and turn it toward an arresting view of causal factors that you might not have considered. And it is this reconsideration lies the striking realization that history, as Prof. Snyder points out, profoundly and pointedly anchors the present….and becomes a purchase from which a peaceful and hopeful future can launch.

A stunning work!

Essential reading

This is one of the most horrifying and terrifying books I've experienced, and I believe it to be one of the most important.