Daniel Goldhagen

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (born June 30, 1959) is an American author and former associate professor of government and social studies at Harvard University. Goldhagen reached international attention and broad criticism as the author of two controversial books about the Holocaust: Hitler's Willing Executioners (1996) and A Moral Reckoning (2002). He is also the author of Worse Than War (2009), which examines the phenomenon of genocide, and The Devil That Never Dies, in which he traces a worldwide rise in virulent anti-Semitism. (2013).

Biography

Daniel Goldhagen was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Erich and Norma Goldhagen. He grew up in nearby Newton. His wife Sarah (née Williams) is an architectural historian, and critic for The New Republic magazine.

Erich Goldhagen is a retired Harvard professor and is the father of Goldhagen. He is a Holocaust survivor who with his family was interned in a Jewish ghetto in Czernowitz (present-day Ukraine). He credits his father as a "model of intellectual sobriety and probity". Goldhagen has written that his "understanding of Nazism and of the Holocaust is firmly indebted" to his father's influence. In 1977, Goldhagen entered Harvard and remained there for some twenty years, first as an undergraduate and graduate student, then as an assistant professor in the Government and Social Studies Department.

Daniel

Daniel is a masculine given name and a surname of Hebrew origin. It means, "God is my judge", and derives from two early biblical figures, primary among them Daniel from the Book of Daniel. It is a common given name for males, and is also used as a surname. It is also the basis for various derived given names and surnames.

Background

The name evolved into over 100 different spellings in countries around the world. Nicknames (Dan, Danny) are common in both English and Hebrew, although in some instances "Dan" may be a complete given name rather than a nickname. The name "Daniil" (Даниил) is common in Russia. Feminine versions (Danielle, Daniela, Daniella, Dani, Danitza) are prevalent as well. The Dutch names "Daan" and "Daniël" are also variations of Daniel. A related surname developed as a patronymic, Daniels. Other surnames derived from "Daniel" include McDaniel and Danielson.

In the United States, the U.S. Social Security Administration reports that Daniel has peaked as the fifth most popular name for newborns in 1985, 1990, 2007, and 2008. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that in the 2000 census, "Daniels" was the 182nd most common surname in the U.S., while "McDaniel" was ranked at 323, and "Daniel" (without a final "s") was ranked at 380.

The Open Championship

The Open Championship, or simply The Open (often referred to as the British Open), is the oldest of the four major championships in professional golf. Held in the United Kingdom, it is administered by The R&A and is the only major outside the United States. The Open is currently the third major of the calendar year, following The Masters and the U.S. Open, and preceding the PGA Championship.

The current champion is Zach Johnson, who won the 144th Open at the Old Course at St. Andrews in 2015. Johnson defeated Marc Leishman and Louis Oosthuizen in a 4-hole playoff on Monday, 20 July 2015.

History

The Open was first played on 17 October 1860 at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. The inaugural tournament was restricted to professionals and attracted a field of eight golfers who played three rounds of Prestwick's twelve-hole course in a single day. Willie Park, Sr. won with a score of 174, beating Old Tom Morris, by two strokes. The following year the tournament was opened to amateurs; eight of them joined ten professionals in the field.

Open Mind

Open Mind may refer to:

Hitler's Willing Executioners

Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust is a 1996 book by American writer Daniel Goldhagen, in which he argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism" in the German political culture, which had developed in the preceding centuries. Goldhagen argues that this "eliminationist antisemitism" was the cornerstone of German national identity, and that this type of antisemitism was unique to Germany and because of it, ordinary German conscripts killed Jews willingly. Goldhagen asserts that this special mentality grew out of medieval attitudes from a religious basis, but was eventually secularized.

The book, which began as a Harvard doctoral dissertation, was written largely as an answer to Christopher Browning's 1992 book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. Much of Goldhagen's book is concerned with the actions of the same Reserve Battalion 101 of the Nazi German Ordnungspolizei. His narrative challenges numerous aspects of Browning's book, however. Goldhagen had already indicated his opposition to Browning's thesis in a review of Ordinary Men in the July 13, 1992 edition of The New Republic titled "The Evil of Banality".