How much did American Protestants know about the Nazi persecution of European Jews before and during Word War II? Very little, many of them claimed in the postwar years. Robert W. Ross challenges that answer in this analysis of the ways in which Protestant journals ranging from The Christian CenturyÓ to The Arkansas BaptistÓ reported and editorialized on the subject from 1933 through 1945.
Man's Most Dangerous Myth was first published in 1942, when Nazism flourished, when African Americans sat at the back of the bus, and when race was considered the determinant of people's character and intelligence. It presented a revolutionary theory for its time; breaking the link between genetics and culture, it argued that race is largely a social construction and not constitutive of significant biological differences between people. In the ensuing 55 years, as Ashley Montagu's radical hypothesis became accepted knowledge, succeeding editions of his book traced the changes in our conceptions of race and race relations over the 20th century. Now, over 50 years later, Man's Most Dangerous Myth is back in print, fully revised by the original author. Montagu is internationally renowned for his work on race, as well as for such influential books as The Natural Superiority of Women, Touching, and The Elephant Man. This new edition contains Montagu's most complete explication of his theory and a thorough updating of previous editions. The Sixth Edition takes on the issues of the Bell Curve, IQ testing, ethnic cleansing and other current race relations topics, as well as contemporary restatements of topics previously addressed. A bibliography of almost 3,000 published items on race, compiled over a lifetime of work, is of enormous research value. Also available is an abridged student edition containing the essence of Montagu's argument, its policy implications, and his thoughts on contemporary race issues for use in classrooms. Ahead of its time in 1942, Montagu's arguments still contribute essential and salient perspectives as we face the issue of race in the 1990s. Man's Most Dangerous Myth is the seminal work of one of the 20th century's leading intellectuals, essential reading for all scholars and students of race relations.
This book examines how American Protestants, Catholics and Jews responded to the persecution of Jews in Germany and German-occupied territory in the 1930s. The essays focus on American religious responses to Kristallnacht and represent the first examination of multi-religious group responses to the beginnings of the Holocaust.
The book sheds light on various chapters in the long history of Protestant-Jewish relations, from the Reformation to the present. Going beyond questions of antisemitism and religious animosity, it aims to disentangle some of the intricate perceptions, interpretations, and emotions that have characterized contacts between Protestantism and Judaism, and between Jews and Protestants. While some papers in the book address Luther’s antisemitism and the NS-Zeit, most papers broaden the scope of the investigation: Protestant-Jewish theological encounters shaped not only antisemitism but also the Jewish Reform movement and Protestant philosemitic post-Holocaust theology; interactions between Jews and Protestants took place not only in the German lands but also in the wider Protestant universe; theology was crucial for the articulation of attitudes toward Jews, but music and philosophy were additional spheres of creativity that enabled the process of thinking through the relations between Judaism and Protestantism. By bringing together various contributions on these and other aspects, the book opens up directions for future research on this intricate topic, which bears both historical significance and evident relevance to our own time.
Published in Open Access with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation Historical criticism of the Bible emerged in the context of protestant theology and is confronted in every aspect of its study with otherness: the Jewish people and their writings. However, despite some important exceptions, there has been little sustained reflection on the ways in which scholarship has engaged, and continues to engage, its most significant Other. This volume offers reflections on anti-Semitism, philo-Semitism and anti-Judaism in biblical scholarship from the 19th century to the present. The essays in this volume reflect on the past and prepare a pathway for future scholarship that is mindful of its susceptibility to violence and hatred.
In this landmark study, a sequel to Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1939-1941, his study of America’s restrictive pre-World War II immigration policies, David S. Wyman documents how FDR’s administration, especially the State Department, refused to undertake serious efforts to rescue European Jews from the Holocaust, and argues that a commitment to rescue by the United States could have saved several hundred thousand victims from the Nazis. The definitive work on its subject, this book won the National Jewish Book Award, theAnisfield-Wolf Award, the Present Tense Literary Award, the Stuart Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the Theodore Saloutos Award of the Immigration History Society, and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. “[Wyman’s] earlier work on prewar American attitudes to refugees from Hitler’s expanding Reich, Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1938-1941, has admirably equipped him to pursue the shameful story into the war years, when the incredulity of those in a position to know, the deliberate obstructionism of xenophobic and anti-Semitic officials and extravagant bureaucratic infighting within the Jewish community no less than in Government meant not merely agonizing delay but death for thousands who could have been rescued. His research in widely scattered sources meticulously reconstructs a complex story from which very few individuals emerge with credit, and some, notably President Franklin D. Roosevelt, stand clearly indicted for a cold indifference in practice utterly at variance with lofty humanitarian sentiments publicly proclaimed for political advantage... Mr. Wyman’s analysis, exemplary in its clarity and thoroughness... [adopts a] judicious tone and preference for marshaling evidence rather than apportioning blame. That evidence is... cumulatively devastating, implicating both passive bystanders and perpetrators in the vast crime that Mr. Wyman, himself a non-Jew, reminds us was a tragedy not only for the Jewish people but for all human beings.” — A. J. Sherman, The New York Times “[Wyman] subjects the American record during the Holocaust to the closest scrutiny it has yet received... It is the meticulously documented detail that makes the impact of his book shocking, disturbing and unforgettable... The documents that Mr. Wyman quotes in grim abundance — cold-blooded private memoranda, pettifogging evasions, flagrant lies — establish beyond any possible doubt that neither the relevant State Department officers nor their opposite numbers in the British Foreign Office had the slightest intention of allowing more than a token handful of Jews to be rescued.” — John Gross, The New York Times “A monumental volume: sweeping in its scope, stunning in its insight, and enduring in its importance... A damning indictment.” — Wall Street Journal “One of the most powerful books I have ever read.” — Senator Paul Simon “Impressively researched, balanced in its judgments, devastating in its discussion of untaken opportunities, and informed by an essentially moral purpose, The Abandonment of the Jews makes a clear, largely persuasive argument.” — Richard S. Levy, Commentary Magazine “Never before has the evidence been marshaled so painstakingly, with such meticulous scholarship and to such effect.” — Washington Post Book World “A telling account of one of the sorriest episodes in world history... we will not see a better book on this subject in our lifetime.” — Leonard Dinnerstein, The Journal of American History “[A] landmark study... Objective and dispassionate, the book is a model of historical writing.” — Irving Abella, The American Historical Review “Authoritative, scholarly, and fascinating.” — Yehuda Bauer
The Holocaust and World War II: In History and In Memory is a thematic volume of nineteen articles based on papers presented at the 9th Middle Tennessee State University International Holocaust Studies Conference in October, 2009. It focuses on the connection between World War II and the Holocaust as it was lived as well as how it is remembered, commemorated and taught. It is interdisciplinary in terms of subject and content, and it explores a variety of methodological approaches to the topic, including historical analysis, pedagogy, oral testimony, literary criticism and museology. The volume features three articles written by the conference’s featured speakers. Two of them were authored by the keynote speaker, internationally acclaimed historian Gerhard L. Weinberg. Arguably the world’s foremost authority on WWII, Weinberg is the author of A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II and several other prize-winning books. He contributes “World War II: A Brief History” and an article titled “Roosevelt, Truman and the Holocaust” that evaluates the difficult decisions concerning the Holocaust made by two American presidents. The second featured speaker, Raffael Scheck, author of Hitler’s African Victims: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940, contributes an article titled “Racial Hatred: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940” to this volume. Scheck’s essay places the experiences of these black French African prisoners of war into the broader context of the treatment of black people by the Nazis. The remaining sixteen articles, contributed by prominent scholars from North America, Europe and Asia, represent a broad spectrum of disciplines, methodological approaches, and points of view concerning the Holocaust and the Second World War. The editors believe this anthology will be both an important acquisition for libraries and a useful tool for scholars, teachers, researchers and general readers interested in the World War II era as well as in the Holocaust.
It has been thirty years since the publication of Irving Abella and Harold Troper's seminal work None is Too Many, which documented the official barriers that kept Jewish immigrants and refugees out of Canada in the shadow of the Second World War. The book won critical acclaim, but a haunting question remained: Why did Canada act as it did in the 1930s and 1940s? Answering this question requires a deeper understanding of the attitudes, ideas, and information that circulated in Canadian society during this period. How much did Canadians know at the time about the horrors unfolding against the Jews of Europe? Where did their information come from? And how did they respond, on both public and institutional levels, to the events that marked Hitler's march to power: the 1935 Nuremberg Race Laws, the 1936 Olympics, Kristallnacht, and the crisis of the MS St Louis? The contributors to this collection - scholars of international repute - turn to the wider public sphere for answers: to the media, the world of literature, the university campus, the realm of international sport, and networks of community activism. Their findings reveal that the persecutions and atrocities taking place in Nazi Germany inspired a range of responses from ordinary Canadians, from indifference to outrage to quiet acquiescence. It is challenging to recreate the mindset of more than seventy years ago. Yet this collection takes up that challenge, digging deeper into archives, records, and testimonies that can offer fresh interpretations of this dark period. The answer to the question "why?" begins here. Contributors include: Doris Bergen, Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Chair in Holocaust Studies, University of Toronto, Richard Menkis, Department of History, University of British Columbia; Harold Troper, Department of Theory and Policy Studies in Education, OISE/University of Toronto; Amanda Grzyb, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario; Rebecca Margolis, Centre for Canadian Jewish Studies, University of Ottawa; Michael Brown, Department of Languages, Literatures and Lingustics, York University; Norman Ravvin, Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies, Concordia University; and James Walker, Department of History, University of Waterloo.
