Ideology and Experience: Antisemitism in France at the Time of the Dreyfus Affair (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization) - Softcover

Stephen Wilson

9781904113591: Ideology and Experience: Antisemitism in France at the Time of the Dreyfus Affair (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1904113591 ISBN 13: 9781904113591

Publisher: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2007

'An unprecedentedly complete compendium of evidence ...exceptionally well written.' The Observer 'An excellent historical, sociological and psychological examination ...even those who believe they understand the mechanics of antisemitism will benefit from a reading of this book.' Jerusalem Post In this analysis of racialism in late-nineteenth-century France, antisemitism is studied not in isolation but in its social context, as an indicator and symptom of profound social change. As anticapitalism, for example, antisemitism expressed hostility to modern economic forms and 'the rule of money'; as a kind of socialism, it expressed opposition to the establishment without calling the social hierarchy into question; as a kind of nationalism and as racialism, it created a sense of belonging, in opposition to the Jews and to other supposedly alien groups within French society. Other aspects studied in the book are the religious, the sexual, and the cultural and intellectual, in which antisemitism again acted as the vehicle for the expression of the fears inspired by and in reaction to the experience of rapid change, which was seen as a fundamental decadence. Always the supposed action of the Jews supplied an explanation of otherwise inexplicable phenomena. Analysis of involvement in the Dreyfus Affair, which dramatized antisemitism and gave it new appeal and legitimacy, and of the antisemitic movement and its activities, indicates which social groups were particularly attracted to antisemitism: students, the clergy and Catholics generally, shopkeepers, army officers, members of the liberal professions, and the aristocracy. In each case, particular anxieties and grievances were articulated through a common ideology. There is little evidence that antisemitism was prompted by any experience of actual co-existence with any Jewish communities, except in the east of France; the choice of Jews as scapegoats has, rather, historical and religious explanations. Antisemitism at thi

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Review:

An unprecedentedly complete compendium of evidence . . . exceptionally well written. --The Observer

An excellent historical, sociological and psychological examination of anti-semitism . . . even those who believe they understand the mechanics of anti-semitism will benefit from a reading of this book. --Jerusalem Post

About the Author:

Stephen Wilson was formerly Reader in European History at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of Feuding, Conflict, and Banditry in Nineteenth-Century Corsica (1988), which won the Prix du Livre Corse, The Means of Naming: A Social and Cultural History of Personal Naming in Western Europe (1998), and The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern Europe (2000).

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