This concise and well-written monograph examines “how and why genocide denial laws have been enacted in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and France” (vii), and describes how these laws have been applied by examining influential decisions by judges. Guenter Lewy further enriches his discussion of jurisprudence by examining prosecutions of Holocaust deniers that had preceded the enactment of such laws—for example, under statutes that prohibited incitement to violence or other threats to the public peace. The other purpose of this book is to argue that genocide denial laws are ill-advised, among other reasons because, in Lewy's view, they do not effectively inhibit Holocaust and genocide denial; moreover, they represent the first steps down a slippery slope toward pernicious limits on freedom of expression.

Genocide denial laws were enacted in France in 1990, in Austria in 1992, and in Switzerland and Germany in 1994. By 2008 more than half the states in Europe, thirteen in all, had laws on the books that criminalized genocide denial. In each of the four countries Lewy chose as case studies, there have been in most years only a handful of prosecutions under the genocide denial laws. After reviewing developments in these four countries, Lewy supplements his analysis with chapters that examine, in turn, the botched trials of Ernst Zündel in Canada, efforts by international bodies to combat genocide denial, the criminalization of the “denial or affirmation of the Armenian genocide,” the Mermelstein case (which illustrates some particularities of US law), and some problems that plague government-mandated genocide education. Although the book's title refers to genocide in general, Lewy mainly discusses criminal sanctions against denial of the Holocaust, as the laws in question all originated as efforts to criminalize Holocaust denial; only the Swiss law has been successfully used to punish the denial of any other episode of genocide, namely, the one perpetrated against the Armenians.

In arguing against genocide denial laws, Lewy focuses mainly on how judges have applied the laws, pointing to imprecise language or other flaws in the laws or in judicial rulings that might have allowed the laws be applied too broadly, and suggesting that such overbroad application could lead to unacceptable infringements of freedom of expression. In Germany, for example, the 1994 denial law breached a kind of firewall in the law governing freedom of expression. Up to that point, opinions, no matter how reprehensible, were protected speech, but perniciously false statements of fact were not. Under the new law, the state could punish someone “who approves, denies, or downplays” (24) an act of genocide, and the crucial term downplays (verharmlost) seems to encompass differences of opinion, especially because it implies a subjective value judgment and resists precise definition. Yet, Lewy finds no example of this imprecise statutory language leading to any threat to freedom of expression, and notes that the 1994 and 1995 rulings in the high profile Tucholsky case affirmed the protected status of opinion (the case involved a schoolteacher's bumper sticker which stated that “All Soldiers Are Murderers”). Lewy makes this slippery slope argument with skill, but, in judicial practice, the results have not been terribly ominous so far.

In the book's concise and even-handed conclusion, Lewy neatly summarizes the varied arguments for and against criminalizing genocide denial. Arguments against such legislation include the claims that ignoring deniers is a more effective weapon against them; that putting deniers on trial allows them to pose as defenders of civil liberties; and that criminalizing denial makes it “forbidden fruit, which may have a special attraction for young people” (162). His criticisms of genocide denial laws sound eminently reasonable. Indeed, the American Historical Association, as well as a group of over 1,100 European scholars and intellectuals, have formally stated opposition to such laws. However, some of the theories that Lewy presents about the inadvisability of enacting such laws, e.g. about “forbidden fruit,” are exceedingly difficult to test empirically—which is not a criticism of Lewy, but remains an important caveat to bear in mind when evaluating his argument.

Lewy narrates the history of these laws, and the court cases that have defined their application, with admirable clarity and efficiency. He also makes the relevant legal concepts and procedures fully accessible to readers who lack legal training, using analysis that is concise and engaging. But although Lewy neatly summarizes how these laws have been enacted and applied, he has far less to say about the more difficult question he poses at the book's beginning: why were these laws enacted in the first place? When explaining how each of these laws came into being, he focuses narrowly on the dramatic incidents (e.g., in the German case, a March 1994 arson attack on a synagogue in the city of Lübeck) that seem to have catalyzed public discussion of Holocaust denial and prompted calls for action. Lewy says very little, however, about the substance of this public discussion, or about the attendant media commentary or parliamentary debates that preceded the laws' enactment. The reader is thus left with few clues about the social and political forces that underpinned support for these laws. His book is thus much more a legal analysis than an examination of the historical moment that gave rise to these laws. Again, this observation is not so much a criticism of Lewy's book as a recognition of its limits. Such limits notwithstanding, the study succeeds admirably on its own terms. It remains one of the only book-length treatments of genocide denial laws (see also Ludovic Hennebel and Thomas Hochmann, eds., Genocide Denials and the Law [2011]; Robert A. Kahn, Holocaust Denial and the Law: A Comparative Study [2004]), and is essential reading for anyone concerned with Holocaust and genocide denial.