 His approach would be anthropological, treating Germans the same way that an anthropologist would describe preindustrial people who believed in absurd things such as trees having magical powers.Goldhagen's book was meant to be an anthropological "thick description" in the manner of Clifford Geertz.The violent antisemitic "cultural axiom" held by Martin Luther in the 16th century and expressed in his 1543 book "On the Jews and Their Lies", according to Goldhagen, were the same as those held by Adolf Hitler in the 20th century.