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Empathy: A History by Susan Lanzoni (New Haven, CT & London: Yale University Press, 2018; 392 pp.)
Empathy and Its Limits edited by Aleida Assmann and Ines Detmers (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, ; 219 pp.)
History Flows Through Us: Germany, the Holocaust, and the Importance of Empathy edited by Roger Frie (London & New York: Routledge, ; 194 pp.)
‘But they don't go in for facts in History these days. They go in for empathy, Lewis. Whatever that is.’1
I had been researching one particular German family's experience of the Third Reich, and because of that I agreed to review a book that was clearly relevant to my topic. It was the volume edited by Roger Frie - History Flows Through Us: Germany, the Holocaust, and the Importance of Empathy.
Though the word ‘empathy’ has lurked in the English language for over a century, it has only come into prominence during the last two or three decades. I had never properly assimilated it into my active vocabulary. When I admitted this to Shaul Bar-Haim, the Book Review Editor, he took on the role of mentor and sent me two further books: Empathy: A History by Susan Lanzoni, and another collection of articles, Empathy and Its Limits, edited by Aleida Assmann and Ines Detmers.
These three books and various others I ended up reading should have left me in a position to understand the importance and limitations of empathy.