This is a somewhat auspicious review for me, being my first since being banned from posting reviews on Amazon, for (as far as I can tell) reviewing books like this! So we will see how long my Goodreads reviews last..

Obviously this is book is going to be quite a full on read, Snyder has gone somewhat viral lately for
his advice in resisting tyranny, and I have a raft of his books on my to-read list. In my typically
completionist way I felt like it was too cheap to start with the shorter more accessible piece and I
had to ‘earn’ those by getting through this tome.

But enough about my neurosis…

I think to start, its worth covering a sort of content warning. Dealing with the Holocaust is of course going to be a traumatic read, and Snyder’s approach of being detail orientated and thorough can be incredibly difficult. Even though the style is effective and academic its still harrowing to scour this material, and while for me personally I felt it was necessary to dive into this book eyes open to honor those impacted – I would not necessary recommend this book at a purely introductory text or if you weren't feeling up for this material right now.

What Black Earth is essentially about is Snyder’s theories of what led to the Holocaust and enabled
WWII Germany to pursue a genocide beyond what has been known before or since (although places are getting darn close). Some might try to minimize these events by pointing to humankind’s bloody and violent history and even modern actions, which are still horrific to be sure, but The Holocaust still stands alone as an event beyond evil.

Obviously it would be a little foolish to attempt to summarize Snyder’s arguments from a such an
expert text in a book review, however some key standouts were arguments like:

Snyder’s analysis of Hiter’s worldview – many assume that the WWII German leader’s views were just extremely or fatalistically racist (which they were) but Snyder explains how his worldview (alongside having that narcissistic trait of actually being quite flexible as long as HE gets to decide the flexibility) is actually a double-bind of racism, he didn’t just believe in a master race to which all were inferior, he also believed that the way-of-the-world was violent competition between races, so to pursue anything but e.g. peace, co-operation etc was Wrong and ‘Jewish.’ I say its a double-bind because its a perspective that despises "inferior" races AND people who refuse to be racist. 

I think the reason this stood out to me is that you could replace the word ‘Jew’ with ‘Woke’ and see
a lot of the same opinions being expressed today – however rather than physically violent competition its ‘free-market’ or economic wanton violence. It’s not that some people don’t believe that empathic and compassionate world-views work, its that they genuinely believe that wealth inequality is survival of the fittest and ergo not just justified, but morally correct. Modern Fascists are racist (and all the rest of the bigotries) to be sure but the nihilism appears to lie in the economic conflict not the physical.

But back to this book – another element that echoed into modern times was Sydner’s analysis of
statelessness. When much of Eastern Europe was invaded and counter invaded by the Soviets and
Germany this led to a considerable amount of chaos in regards to Statehood, where some countries
retained their own government and others were completed erased. Snyder shows, through painful
analysis, that the most dangerous situation to be in for Jews was stateless. Lacking a state reduced
the chance of escape and help, and also removed potential defenses. While Germany
controlled all conquered states with a relatively iron fist there were still elements that reduced
potential murders – for example in stateless and lawless areas Nazis were able to
implement their plans without much scrutiny or backlash – not to mention that local populations
were highly motivated to cover their own safety by co-operating with the regime. Even an occupied
or puppet governed state still has checks and balances in place that while not perfect, and not
necessarily heroic did lead to less death in these areas.

The reason I say it echoes now, is with climate crises increasing the likelihood of corresponding
refugee crisis, with the increase in war and other horrors in states that are ‘unrecognized’ some of
the parallels become clear. It might not be immediately obvious but having an intact state and citizenship thereof is extremely important.

To round off this book, there is also copious amount of material covering the above points and more, such as summaries of the situations that led to ‘helpers’ and other heroes who saved Jews and others. I will confess that at times the amount of information was overwhelming, Snyder carefully documents dozens, if not a hundred or more individual stories that capture his points about The Holocaust, while I won’t be remembering every single one of them their stories are beyond important.

Snyder’s lessons are very interesting from this book – in some respects they aren’t the sexy or
admirable ‘stay true’ or ‘be hopeful’ or whatever. His main message is to support and prop up States and institutions. As boring as it sounds it’s a key factor in preventing societies from being swayed by the nihilistic but well-sold views of an authoritarian ruler. He points out the truth that the sometimes bland elements of politics are where you want to be, extremists sell dramatic but attractive lies and its hard to sell the mundane as important but that’s the task ahead of us if we want to prevent the bloodshed of the early 1900s (or the next version)