Anti–Semitic Stereotypes: A Paradigm of Otherness in English Popular Culture, 1660-1830 (Johns Hopkins Jewish Studies) - Softcover

Felsenstein

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801861799 ISBN 13: 9780801861796

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999

Synopsis

Paperback completely clean

About this title

Review:

"Intelligent and informative. Two aspects are especially valuable. [Felsenstein] makes more extensive use than previous writers of ephemeral literature―tracts, periodicals, chapbooks, sermons, and so forth; and he analyses pictorial evidence, which in practice means satirical prints, with as much care as the written word."

(John Gross Times Literary Supplement)

"Felsenstein's book shows just how widespread and persistent... stereotyping was and makes available for further analysis a considerable amount of new information, especially pictorial evidence, which he analyzes brilliantly."

(James Shapiro Shakespeare Quarterly)

"Felsenstein's enormously absorbing, fluent yet provocative study ultimately questions the defeat of the image of Jewish 'Otherness'... If the traditional Whig version of history would point towards the triumph of a cosy English tolerance, Felsenstein's study provides powerful support to those scholars of minorities in Britain who would point to the persistence of prejudice."

(Mark Levene Notes and Queries)

"A luminous and scholarly survey of a familiar subject from a fresh perspective."

(Michael Shinagel The Age of Johnson)

"An excellent example of intelligent, learned, and informative cultural history."

(Vincent Carretta Albion)

Synopsis:

This work focuses on English cultural attitudes toward Jews during what is known as the "longer" 18th century, from roughly 1660 to 1830. Frank Felsenstein describes the persistence through the period of certain negative biases that, in many cases, can be traced back at least to the late Middle Ages. He finds evidence of these biases in a range of primary sources - chapbooks, ephemeral pamphlets, tracts, jest books, prints, folklore, proverbial expressions, and so on, as well as in the products of higher culture. With the advent of the 19th century, however, he sees a gradual development of more liberal attitudes in English society, which he sees as evidence of the loosening hold upon the collective imagination of medieval beliefs concerning the Jews.

About this edition

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0801861799
• ISBN 13: 9780801861796
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 376