Antisemitism A History

by Lindemann, Albert S.; Levy, Richard S.

• ISBN13: 9780199235025
• ISBN10: 0199235023
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-12-09
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Antisemitism: A History offers a readable overview of a daunting topic, describing and analyzing the hatred that Jews have faced from ancient times to the present. The essays contained in this volume provide an ideal introduction to the history and nature of antisemitism, stressing readability, balance, and thematic coherence, while trying to gain some distance from the polemics and apologetics that so often cloud the subject. Chapters have been written by leading scholars in the field and take into account the most important new developments in their areas of expertise. Collectively, the chapters cover the whole history of antisemitism, from the ancient Mediterranean and the pre-Christian era, through the Medieval and Early Modern periods, to the Enlightenment and beyond. The later chapters focus on the history of antisemitism by region, looking at France, the English-speaking world, Russia and the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Nazi Germany, with contributions too on the phenomenon in the Arab world, both before and after the foundation of Israel.

Contributors grapple with the use and abuse of the term 'antisemitism', which was first coined in the mid-nineteenth century but which has since gathered a range of obscure connotations and confusingly different definitions, often applied retrospectively to historically distant periods and vastly dissimilar phenomena. Of course, as this book shows, hostility to Jews dates to biblical periods, but the nature of that hostility and the many purposes to which it has been put have varied over time and often been mixed with admiration - a situation which continues in the twenty-first century.

Author Biography

Albert S. Lindemann is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of a number of books on nineteenth and twentieth century European history and antisemitism, including Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews (1997) and, most recently, Anti-Semitism before the Holocaust (2000).
Richard S. Levy is Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago and specializes in the history of antisemitism. He is the author of A Lie and a Libel: The History of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and his most recent publication is Antisemitism: Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution (2005).

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction, Albert S. Lindemann and Richard S. Levy
1. The Jewish Question, Albert S. Lindemann
2. The Ancient Mediterranean and the Pre-Christian Era, Benjamin Isaac
3. Jews and Christians from the Time of Christ to Constantine's Reign, Philip A. Cunningham
4. The Middle Ages, Alex Novikoff
5. Antisemitism in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods, Ralph Keen
6. Antisemitism in the Age of Mercantilism, Jonathan Karp
7. The Enlightenment, French Revolution, Napoleon, Adam Sutcliffe
8. Political Antisemitism in Germany and Austria, 1848-1914, Richard S. Levy
9. Antisemitism in Modern France: Dreyfus, Vichy, and Beyond, Richard J. Golsan
10. Antisemitism in the English-Speaking World, William D. Rubinstein
11. Antisemitism in Russia and the Soviet Union, Heinz-Dietrich Lowe
12. Antisemitism in the Nazi Era, Doris L. Bergen
13. Anti-Judaism and Antisemitism in the Arab and Islamic World Prior to 1948, Norman A. Stillman
14. Antisemitism in Eastern Europe (excluding Russia and the Soviet Empire) since 1848, Istvan Deak
15. Israel and Antisemitism, Meir Litvak and Esther Webman
Conclusion: Not the Final Word, Albert S. Lindemann and Richard S. Levy