Book Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 5

Book Review - Essay Example These documents are tangible proof of the manner in which governments and titans of the industry have harmed their own people. What is most shocking is the tendency of investigating agencies to later help in the cover up operations mounted by these industrial giants and the so-called protectors of the citizens of the nation. These accounts of governmental apathy and disregard for innocents raises the troubling question of how safe are we, the populace of a nation. In this summary, we shall be discussing this hand in glove attitude of people in power, who treat common individuals as guinea pigs in their quest for control over the world. Edwin Black’s IBM and the Holocaust is a painstaking episode delving into the convergence of technology and the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany between 1935 and 1945. It is a powerful documentation of how Thomas J. Watson’s (Chief of IBM at the time) greed and his desire to monopolize the emerging market of technological possibilities led him to make covert deals with Hitler’s government. Hitler was not the first man to hate the Jews, but his terrifying objectives of wiping out Jews from Europe was aided by the â€Å"solution providers† at IBM. The IBM Hollerith D-11, card sorting machine, which identified the Jews during the 1933 census, in a way sealed their fates forever. Edwin Black lays the blame for the condition of Jews as much on Hitler as the card machines provided to the Third Reich by Thomas J Watson’s company. These machines helped in cross indexing government, church and communal records. Edwin Black juxtaposed the movement of ma chines from one Nazi occupied territory to another and uncovered that it was these machines, using punch cards, all provided by IBM, which helped in the systematic slaughter to Jews. These lists can be termed as glaring instances of corporate misconduct, because the greed of one company fed the vicious ambitions of one individual,