Historical Journalism at its best

Alexander Zvielli

Jerusalem Post

Black has authored an exhaustive, compelling, well-written and edited work. It is historical journalism at its best.

Overwhelming and cohesive

Yoav Gelber

Yad Vashem

Edwin Black's research is striking in its dimension and scope. The vast uncovering of source material and its extensive use are almost overwhelming. He succeeds in crystallizing the various aspects of an almost worldwide problem into fluid and cohesive analysis.

Spellbinding

Sybil Milton

Simon Wiesenthal Center

A spellbinding, exciting book exploring new dramatic facets. Despite the voluminous literature on the Third Reich, Mandate Palestine, modern Zionism, and the Holocaust, this subject had not been previously explored. It adds a significant new dimension to our understanding of this critical period.

Meticulous; essential

Gladwyn Hill

Los Angeles Times

Black … has meticulously documented this obscure but important slice of world history … [T]he book outlines brilliantly the historic roots of German antisemitism, the German economic plight that aggravated it, and the resulting contention among world Jewry that still reverberates … makes an essential contribution to an understanding of Israeli politics and the strife in the Middle East today.

Depressing detail

A. J. Sherman

The New York Times

Black reconstructs in depressing detail the [Jewish world’s] strident debates and acrimonious struggles while pursuing the increasingly unrealistic goal of bringing the Third Reich to its knees.

Meticulous; incredible

American Library Association Booklist

Meticulously researched … Black took five years to research and write this incredible volume … He poses the controversial question: “Was it madness or was it genius?” The many fascinated readers will have to decide for themselves.

Precise historical detail

Martin Gilbert

Author, Israel, a History

Black again shows that he is a master of precise historical detail, placing each piece into a compelling whole.

Rich new discoveries

Robert Wolfe

Co-author, U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis

It is hard to conceive of a historian who has mined so many rich new discoveries, but Black is that historian and The Transfer Agreement stands as a prime example.

Incredible; uncanny skill

The Cincinnati Enquirer

Black brings an incredible amount of material together. With uncanny skill, he keeps it all under control. Five stars.

Exciting; heartbreaking

Present Tense

On one level, this book is an exciting spy story. On another, it is a heartbreaking account of anguished and bewildered human beings caught in a nightmare situation.

Immense undertaking

The Dallas Times Herald

… [F]ive years of exhaustive research … The undertaking was immense.

Exhaustive, compelling

Ben Halpern

Moment Magazine

As a work of historical journalism, this book is exhaustive and compelling.

An incredible job

Chicago Sun-Times

A passionate book, certain to be controversial … [An] incredible job.

A painful chapter

Jan Cawley

Chicago Tribune Magazine

A struggle to write a painful chapter in Jewish history. What Black began uncovering was a tangled account of an anguished moment in history, one that he at the center had to piece together from … forgotten archives, newspapers from the pre-WWII era, and government records.

Helps understanding

Larry Cohler

Long Island Jewish World

In the hands of a different writer, this material … could have formed a much different story, damning Zionism and the State of Israel … It does not. Black is trying to increase our understanding and appreciation of what we have in the Jewish State of Israel and at what hidden costs.

Compassionate

B’nai B’rith

Jewish Monthly

A compassionate longing for truth.

Compelling

Alan Borsuk

Milwaukee Journal

… [A]n exhaustively documented and compelling book.

New ground

Abraham Peck

American Jewish Archives

Important new ground. Black’s research efforts extend far beyond the capabilities of one or even two authors.

The great dilemma

Publishers Weekly

Black … gives particulars on … the great dilemma of 1933 — whether to concentrate on toppling the Nazi regime through boycott or the extrication of German Jews before it was too late.

Well-documented

The Baltimore Sun

[A] well-documented, highly-charged book that is likely to stir controversy.

Riveting

Chicago Tribune Book World

Told wonderfully

Prof. Samuel Edelman

Holocaust historian

The Transfer Agreement tells the story of this tragic success — wonderfully.

Tremendous

Prof. Samuel Merlin

Author, Millions of Jews to Rescue

A tremendous canvas filled with people and events of extraordinary dramatic impact.

Fascinating

Morton Klein

President, Zionist Organization of America

Edwin Black tells a fascinating, somber, and painstakingly-researched tale of Zionist efforts to deal with the devil in order to save Jews from the Nazi clutches. It is a story that deserves to be far better known.

Like a movie plot — but true

Joseph Aaron

Baltimore Jewish Times

It sounds like a plot for a movie on the late late show … but it’s not a movie plot. It’s true. All of it. And all of it is detailed in this controversial book.

Like a spy book

Byron Sherwin

Author, Encountering the Holocaust

It reads like a good spy book, something out of John LeCarre.

Did not sleep

Phillip Klutznick

President Emeritus, World Jewish Congress

I took it home and did not sleep half the night while I kept reading.

Compelling

Robert Wolfe

Chief of Nazi Records, National Archives

Edwin Black has succeeded beyond my hopes and expectations of doing justice to the Jewish protagonists of this dreadful and depressing history. He has not shirked his painful task but accomplished it in a compelling, enlightened and sympathetic way.

The full story for the first time

Abraham Foxman

National director, ADL

Despite the enormity of its economic and human importance to the Jews of Europe and the development of Palestine, the entire subject is conspicuously absent from almost all standard histories of the period. But … Edwin Black’s The Transfer Agreement tells the full story for the first time. It vividly describes in tense style the minute-to-minute negotiations as Zionists rushed to save who and what could be saved in the face of a darkening future.

On the agenda everywhere

David Graubart

The Daily Forward

This book will make an impression. It is controversial and will stir up the [Jewish] communities worldwide. Reactions pro and con will be heard. The book is the topic of the day and is on the agenda everywhere.

Intriguing; exciting

Fanny Zelcer

American Jewish Archives

The most intriguing, interesting, exciting and thoroughly documented work I have read in many years.

Probing

Joan Alpert

Jewish War Veterans

Using the techniques of a mystery thriller mixed with historical analysis, Edwin Black has created an exciting, probing account of this critical point in modern history.

Richly documented

Dr. Samuel Schafler

Superintendent, Chicago Board of Jewish Ed

A crisply written, richly documented history of a dark corner of Holocaust history … informs and enlightens without the rancor of retrospection.

First to investigate

C. Fink

Choice Magazine

Black is the first to investigate the origins of the 1933 agreement, the international political and economic context in which it was drawn up, the leading persons involved, the repercussions within Jewish and Zionist organizations, and the long-term results … Black, who conducted research on three continents with the aid of research assistants, has written a detailed, dramatic study of one of the first significant acts of appeasement of the Third Reich and of Jewish history on the eve of the Holocaust.

Well-written; diligently documented

Lawrence Baron

Shofar Magazine

Well-written … diligently documented. These  journalistic qualities earned The Transfer Agreement the Carl Sandburg Award for the best non-fiction work … and a Pulitzer Prize nomination.