abandoned Laun as the language oilegislaturs. adminisrratlon and judiciary only m the 1330s. As is well known, orrhodox Christian countries did not use Latin right from the begmnlng and this for other reasons than remoteness.

Most shortcomings. however. are ones of omlss1on rather than commlssion. To give just one example among many: also on page 21. when dealin, u with the rise ot‘natlonalism in the Balkans, the author stresses the catalysing role of the traditional millets but Ignores the new challenge of Ottomanism, an cmergmg nation state ideology of the Ottoman empire.

In addition, the maps and statistical tables Lvhich are in principle well chosen (they are all taken from other authors) and illustrate the point adequately, are also not without lnaccuracl?s. On page SY u’e find a wrong Graeco-Turkish border; on page 148 are given critical ‘estimates by reputable contemporar) authorities’ without learning who these authorities were, and the Czechoslovak and Yugoslav censuses are said not to have given data of ethnic minorities, though a proper scrutiny of the respective statistical year books (avaIlable In French) would lead to another conclusion.

Also some more reading and fact-tindmg might have helped the author to give a more balanced account of ethnic tenstons, especia!ly during the interwar period. The existence or non-existence of genuine parliamentary democracy xas not a negligible factor In this development.

Jaroslav Krejci

Inside the Vicious Heart. Robert H. Abzug (New York and Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1985).

This brief but compelling book examines a hitherto neglected element of the Holocaust-the liberation of concentration camps in France, Germany and Austria by American soldiers in 1945 and its impact on American moral opinion. The subject is Important because the direct experience of thousands of G.1.s with the aftermath of the Holocausr provided the most credible evidence for many times their number that the unthinkable really did happen. It is also important, as Abzug himself points out, that it was Americans who liberated such camps as Dachau, Buchenwald and Mauthausen; had II been the Russians, then the full story of this grisly episode in modern history might never have come out, or might have been merely caught up in the larger context of Cold War propaganda.

The book is important on two levels. First, it is a dramatic narrative of the impact of liberation on individual Americans. Drawing on the oral hlstory collection at Emory and materials in the Xational Archives as well as the G.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, Abzug sketches such scenes as soldiers vomiting as they encountered the filth and degradation of the camps; outraged commanders shooting German guards or looking the other way as inmates did the job themselves; nearly dead. corpse-llke creatures weakly cheering and embracing their liberators; reluctant German inhabitants of nearby towns being paraded dully by the handiwork of their recent leaders. This level of the book is particularly important for the general reader, who, having undoubtedly encountered recent denials of the Holocaust, can now have the event confirmed by the eyewitness testimony of ordlnark Americans. Reinforcing this testimony, the book is richly and gruesomely illustrated by photographs, many of them taken by ordinary soldiers , gleaned from the Defense Audio-Visual Agency (DAVA) In Washington.

The book also operates on another level to provide some thought-provoking insights

T-he New Nietarhe, David B. Allison. NJ. (Cambridge. klasi.. .\IIT Pr<>>. I’IS5).

774 + XXVIII pp., paperback S9. I-1.

Da\lcl f3. ‘AllIson’s ~oilectlon o~commrntar). ‘T/I(,.Vrrl,.~/~,f_\c,/1~,. ~:I;:I>u”c-‘s. III Il‘i title.

the moit rt‘crnt momr‘nt III Slctzschr intrrpretatlon. Durin g the 1360s. partlcularl> in

Francr, but alho in the United States, there v.;ls a rrvtral oilntrrest in Sletzhchs’> thought,

centred in the tormrr on the et-fort to okercomr the domination ot’>l~r\and Fr:ud on the

European mind. and In the latter on the latt‘ assimtlatlon of the death ot’ Gcrc! decrer b>

Protestant thcologlans. A common source prestded o\er these apAwn:!:, disparate

movements: klartln Hetdrgg<r who, 111 an earlier grwratla. had rshahllltatxf .Sletzsche

as the prophet of the collapx ot‘western mctaph>slc>. Hrnce. the problem oi Heldzggcr’,

~undamzntal ontology, ths meaning of bring. howred o\rr the nt‘u u.~~cooicommrntar>.

iniormlng what has been loosely known as French post-structuralism and .Amcrican