| The Holocaust in American Life | |
| Author: | Peter Novick |
| Publisher: | Houghton Mifflin |
| Pub Date: | 1999 |
| Isbn: | 0395840090 |
The Holocaust in American Life is a book by historian Peter Novick published in 1999. His subject is not the Holocaust, but rather how it has been acknowledged, defined, and spread as an event which requires public remembrance. It has been reviewed by major journals and discussed in many Jewish magazines. The book popularized the term "victimization Olympics" to describe how various groups have fought to portray themselves as the most serious victims of the Holocaust. In the UK the book was published under the alternative title The Holocaust and collective memory: the American experience (Bloomsbury, 1999).
Author Norman G. Finkelstein acknowledges the book as an inspiration for his 2000 book The Holocaust Industry.[1]
Hasia Diner has described Novick and Finkelstein as "harsh critics of American Jewry from the left" and challenges the notion reflected in their books that American Jews did not begin to commemorate the Holocaust until post 1967.