his 1989 book, In Hitler's Shadow, Evans also criticised the intentionalist theories of Hillgruber and Hildebrand. and criticized Stürmer's excessive focus on political history and overlooking of social conditions, as a regression to the outmoded great man theory of history. For his part Evans praised Sir Ian Kershaw, who wrote that "The road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference". (It was Evans who first suggested to Kershaw that he undertake to write a biography of Adolf Hitler.) Evans' In Defence of History defends the discipline of history against postmodernist skepticism of its value. The limitations of our ability to understand and learn from the past notwithstanding, it is still possible, he argues, to reconstruct past events. Evans suggests that the spread in the 1980s and 1990s of post-modernist theories, which declare that history is solely the construct of the historian and depict the rationalist tradition of the West as a form of oppression, was not necessarily left-wing or progressive, for by denying the possibility of accessing past facts, it had also done much to increase the appeal of Holocaust denial. Role as an expert witness in Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt Evans is probably best known to the general public in the role of an expert witness for the defence in the high-profile libel case of David Irving against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt in 2000, Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt. Lipstadt was sued for libel by Irving, after she referred to him as a "Holocaust denier" and "an ardent follower of Adolf Hitler" in her 1993 book, Denying the Holocaust. Lipstadt further accused Irving of "distorting evidence and manipulating documents to serve his own purposes...[as well as] skewing documents and misrepresenting data in order to reach historically untenable conclusions, particularly those that exonerate Hitler." Evans acted as an expert witness for the defence in the case. Starting in the autumn of 1997, Evans, along with Thomas Skelton-Robinson and Nik Wachsmann, two of his PhD students, closely examined Irving's work. They found instances in which he had used forged documents, disregarded contrary evidence, selectively quoted historical documents out of context, and mis-cited historical records, thus misrepresenting historical evidence in order to support his prejudices. Evans subsequently proved to be a powerful witness in Lipstadt's ultimately successful defence. In his expert witness report he wrote: Not one of [Irving's] books, speeches or articles, not one