The Holocaust and New World Slavery: A Comparative HistorySteven T. Katz

This is an extensively researched masterwork by Steven T. Katz in which one third of the second volume consists of bibliography, with a comparable mass of valuable information in the copious footnotes. The content regarding slavery in the New World seems to cite all relevant secondary literature. The same holds largely true for the Holocaust, though below I will mention some items not referenced, for their exclusion limits the explanatory power of the volumes under review. As a non-specialist on New World slavery, I focus here more on the Holocaust. Katz had two major purposes in this book: refuting claims of similarity between New World slavery and the Holocaust; and disputing the importance of slave labor in saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust. In contrast to the instrumental purpose of slavery in economic production, a purpose that presupposed minimally adequate food, healthcare, and working conditions, Jews caught in the Holocaust...