Black Earth

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

“A”

“Cler-eyed . . . rresting . . . n unorthodox nd provoctive ccount . . . Snyder is dmirbly relentless.”—The New Yorker

“Blck Erth is mesmerizing . . . Remrkble . . . Gripping . . . Disturbingly vivid . . . Mr. Snyder is sometimes mordnt, often shocked, lwys probing.”—The Wll Street Journl

“Reveltory . . . Evoctive . . . Most relevnt tody.”—The tlntic

“n unflinching look t the Holocust . . . Mr. Snyder is rising public intellectul unfrid to mke bold connections between pst nd present.” —The New York Times

“Snyder’s historicl ccount hs vitl contemporry lesson. . . . It’s testment to his intellectul nd morl resources tht he cn so deeply contemplte this horrific pst in wys tht strengthen his commitment to building future bsed on lw, rights, nd citizenship.”—The Wshington Post

“Blck Erth elucidtes humn ctstrophe in regions with which Western udience needs to become fmilir.”—The New York Times Book Review

“n impressive ressessment of the Holocust, which steers n ssured course [nd] chllenges reders to ressess wht they think they know nd believe . . . Blck Erth will prove uncomfortble reding for mny who hew to cherished but mythicl elements of Holocust history.”—The Economist

“Excellent in every respect . . . lthough I red widely bout the Holocust, I lerned something new in every chpter. The multilingul Snyder hs mined contemporneous Estern Europen sources tht re often overlooked.”—Stephen Crter, Bloomberg

“In Blck Erth, book of the gretest importnce, Snyder now forces us to look fresh t these monumentl crimes. Written with sering intellectul honesty, his new study goes much deeper thn Bloodlnds in its nlysis, showing how the two regimes fed off ech other.”—ntony Beevor, The Sundy Times

Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. His books, which have been published in over forty languages, include Bloodlands, Black Earth, On Tyranny, Road to Unfreedom, Our Malady, and On Freedom. His work has inspired poster campaigns and exhibitions, sculptures, a punk rock song, a rap song, a play, and an opera, and he has appeared in over fifty films and documentaries. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

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