SOURCE: "The Evolution of American Holocaust Revisionism," in Remembering for the Future: Working Papers and Addenda, Vol. III, edited by Yehuda Bauer and others, Pergamon Press, 1989, pp. 2579-93.

Lipstadt is an American historian and educator whose writings focus on modern Jewish history. In the following essay, she traces the evolution of American Holocaust revisionism.

The roots of American Holocaust revisionism can be found in the work of an influential group of progressive American historians who were deeply disturbed by American involvement in World War I. Some of these historians were highly respected scholars who probably never dreamt that their historiographic approach and arguments would be utilized by a small but prolific group of individuals—most of whom are neither historians nor people of respected standing in the scholarly world—to place history on trial and to revise the truth.

In the aftermath of World War I a school...