Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning by Timothy Snyder Misperceptions, misconnections, and missed observations are just some of the issues that Timothy Snyder raises in his book, Black Earth , concerning the Holocaust. Snyder, no stranger to the frontlines of scholarship on the Holocaust, with his previous book Bloodlands, that concerns the land from Hitler to Stalin, takes a look at the Holocaust from new sources and new avenues of thought. How did some nation-states survive relatively unscathed from Nazi persecution while others, notably Jewish populations, succumb to a wave of killings? Also, what was the role of the Soviet Union in the war and how did Stalin effect changes in the Final Solution? These questions are only two of the many that Snyder answers in his detailed account of the Holocaust. One of the best chapters was entitled The Auschwitz Paradox. Generally when the public thinks about the Holocaust, we think...