Review Essay of My Book in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies

Don’t worry, I will not be linking to any and all reviews of my book.  (Only the good ones.)  I mention this review — a review essay written by the distinguished scholar David Fraser at Nottingham (sub. req.) — because it uses my book as a springboard to discuss a number of important historiographic issues concerning World War II scholarship that readers may find interesting.  Here is the abstract:

This review article discusses the emergence of the subsequent proceedings before the US Military Tribunals from the shadows of the trial of ‘Major War Criminals’ at the International Military Tribunal as explored in Kevin Jon Heller’s The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law. The article applauds Heller’s efforts in producing a detailed examination of an understudied aspect of the origins of international criminal law. The essay suggests that given the specific focus of the author on the genealogy of international criminal law, important legal historical questions are left unexamined. It suggests a research agenda that would focus more specifically on the centrality of the Shoah to National Socialism and argues that the current trend in historical scholarship focusing on war crimes trials as a distinct subject of inquiry could provide a fruitful basis for future socio-legal research into the Nazi state and its legal apparatus.

I completely agree that the book does not answer all — or even most — of the legal questions concerning WW II-era trials.  I very much hope that others will fill the lacunae that my book leaves behind.