The Jews, the Holocaust and the public: the legacies of David Cesarani

Abstract

This book explores the work and legacy of Professor David Cesarani OBE, a leading British scholar and expert on Jewish history who helped to shape Holocaust research, remembrance and education in the UK. It is a unique combination of chapters produced by researchers, curators and commemoration activists who either worked with and/or were taught by the late Cesarani. The chapters in this collection consider the legacies of Cesarani’s contribution to the discipline of history and the practice of public history. The contributors offer reflections on Cesarani’s approach and provide new insights into the study of Anglo-Jewish history, minorities and nationalisms, Nazi war crimes and their legacies and the history and public legacies of the Holocaust. This edited collection comprises 17 chapters (approx' 365 pages) that have been curated by Dr Larissa Allwork and Dr Rachel Pistol. As well as working with Pistol to select and copy edit all the chapters, Allwork co-wrote the 'introduction' with Pistol (c. 6000 words), proposing that there is a distinctly 'Cesaranian' interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Holocaust. Allwork also submitted two further chapters to the collection. The first, a sole authored chapter offering an original interpretation of Gerhard Richter and Gustav Metzger's artistic confrontations with Nazi criminality (c. 10,000). The second, a transcript of an interview conducted with Cesarani in 2009 (c. 7,500 words). This includes an introductory section which self-reflexively grounds the interview and is fully footnoted and referenced.