Iconoclastic and controversial since its original publication in 2000, The Holocaust Industry is an interrogation of the place the Holocaust has come to occupy in American culture, and a disturbing examination of recent Holocaust compensation agreements. Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, Finkelstein exposes the double shakedown of European countries as well as legitimate Jewish claimants, and concludes that the Holocaust industry has become an outright extortion racket. The main danger posed to the memory of Nazism's victims comes not from the distortions of Holocaust deniers, argues Finkelstein, but from prominent, self-proclaimed guardians of Holocaust memory, who deploy it as a shield against any criticism.