Stranger in My Own Country - Hardcover

Yascha Mounk

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374157537 ISBN 13: 9780374157531

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014

Synopsis

As a Jew in post war Germany, Yascha Mounk felt like a foreigner in his own country. When he mentioned that he is Jewish, some made anti-Semitic jokes or talked about the superiority of the Aryan race. Others, sincerely hoping to atone for the country's past, fawned over him with a forced friendliness he found just as alienating. Vivid and fascinating, Stranger in My Own Country traces the contours of Jewish life in a country still struggling with the legacy of the Third Reich and portrays those who, inevitably, continue to live in its shadow. Marshalling an extraordinary range of material into a lively narrative, Mounk surveys his countrymen's responses to the Jewish question. Examining history, the story of his family, and his own childhood, he shows that anti-Semitism and far-right extremism have long coexisted with self-conscious philo-Semitism. But of late a new kind of resentment against Jews has come out in the open. Unnoticed by much of the outside world, the desire for a finish line that would spell a definitive end to the country's obsession with the past is feeding an emphasis on German victimhood. Mounk shows how, from the government's pursuit of a less apologetic foreign policy to the way the country's idea of the Volk makes life difficult for its immigrant communities, a troubled nationalism is shaping Germany's future.

About this title

Review:

Artful and thoughtful . . . One hopes that Mounk will keep his eyes trained on the deep paradoxes informing German-Jewish lives. --Paul Reitter, Bookforum [Mounk] is a gifted raconteur and aphorist, and if you want to learn about Germany's preverse, absurd love for its Jews--the flip side, or the bastard child, of its historical anti-Semitism--this book is a fine place to start . . . Mr. Mounk skillfully puts Germans and Jews on his analyst's couch . . . There is an adage, usually attributed to an Israeli psychoanalyst, that the Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz. If you want to understand how that can be, read this book. --Mark Oppenheimer, The New York Times Mounk's account, one of the first on this subject addressed to a general English-speaking readership, is an intriguing and sometimes disturbing glimpse into an aspect of Jewish life of which most American Jews may not be aware. --Martin Green, Jewish Book Council [A] rich and remarkable memoir . . . Mounk's engaging and provocative book amounts to a kind of intellectual and emotional self-portrait of the author himself and, at the same time, a historical and cultural profile of post-war Germany. --Jonathan Kirsch, Jewish Journal. Informative and entertaining . . . What is it like to be a Jew in Germany in the postwar era? What would lead even a handful of Jews to choose to make their lives in the country that was responsible for the Holocaust? And how did the descendants of the perpetrators treat the descendants of the victims? These are the questions at the heart of Mounk's book, which starts out as a memoir but evolves into something more like a history and a polemic. Accessibly written and full of humor, Stranger in My Own Country uses Mounk's own experiences to shed light on postwar German history and current German politics. Adam Kirsch, Tablet In Stranger in My Own Country, Yascha Mounk compellingly illustrates how the --Various

About the Author:

Yascha Mounk is a PhD candidate in political thought in the Department of Government at Harvard University and is the founding editor of The Utopian. He frequently writes for newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, The Nation, Slate,and Die Zeit.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0374157537
• ISBN 13: 9780374157531
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272