Dreyfus and the Literature of the Third Republic
Dreyfus and the Literature of the Third Republic

Author: Evlyn Gould

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2012-10-06

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 147660052X

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Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jewish army officer, spent twelve years from 1894 to 1906 in solitary confinement for a crime he did not commit. Amidst the dramatic and shifting revelations of what would come to be known throughout the world as the Dreyfus Affair, four influential authors reassessed their moral convictions on the civic questions posed by this abuse. Emile Zola, Maurice Barres, Bernard Lazare, and Marcel Proust offered fictive articulations of response to these questions. Among them, national citizenship and the roles of secularism and public education, as well as tolerance of Jews and other immigrants to France, loom largest. The four authors considered dilemmas still unresolved in the modern democratic cultures of Europe today. Moreover, as this critical study illuminates, the writers in effect were teaching readers to negotiate individual desires and collective purpose and to assess their own values as the effects of Dreyfus continued to ripple through society.

Author:

Publisher: Odile Jacob

Published:

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 273818894X

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A Sephardi Life in Southeastern Europe
A Sephardi Life in Southeastern Europe

Author: Esther Benbassa

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2015-09-14

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 0295998571

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Autobiographical texts are rare in the Sephardi world. Gabriel Arié’s writings provide a special perspective on the political, economic, and cultural changes undergone by the Eastern Sephardi community in the decades before its dissolution, in regions where it had been constituted since the expulsion from Spain in 1492. His history is a fascinating memoir of the Sephardi and Levantine bourgeoisie of the time. For his entire life, Arié—teacher, historian, community leader, and businessman—was caught between East and West. Born in a small provincial town in Ottoman Bulgaria in 1863, he witnessed the disappearance of a social and political order that had lasted for centuries and its replacement by new ideas and new ways of life, which would irreversibly transform Jewish existence. A Sephardi Life in Southeastern Europe publishes in full the autobiography (covering the years 1863-1906) and journal (1906-39) of Gabriel Arié, along with selections from his letters to the Alliance Israélite Universelle. An introduction by Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue analyzes his life and examines the general and the Jewish contexts of the Levant at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.

Jewish Destinies
Jewish Destinies

Author: Pierre Birnbaum

Publisher: Hill and Wang

Published: 2000-02-07

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9780809061013

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A trenchant analysis of the place of minorities in a national culture. Can members of minority cultures be full and equal citizens of a democratic state? Or do community allegiances override loyalty to the state? And who defines a minority community-its members or the state? Pierre Birnbaum asks these crucial questions about France-a nation where 89 percent of the people feel that racism is widespread and 70 percent agree that there are "too many Arabs." Arabs are today's targets, but racism has also been directed at other groups, including Jews. Jews became full citizens of France only at the Revolution, and historians have traditionally held that the state, in thus emancipating Jews and allowing them to join French society as individuals, severed the ties that had once bound the Jewish community together. But Birnbaum shows that the history of Jews in France-and of attitudes toward them-is not so linear. Rather, he finds that anti-Semitism has risen and fallen along with other forms of racism and xenophobia, and he argues that Jews in France today are once again viewed as members of an isolated community-no matter what their degree of assimilation. Birnbaum's conclusions about state and community have broad-reaching implications for all societies that struggle to incorporate minority groups-including the United States.

The Origins of World War Two
The Origins of World War Two

Author: Robert Boyce

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-03-14

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1350317438

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No issue in modern history has been more intensively studied, or subject to wider interpretation, than the origins of the Second World War. A conflict involving three - arguably four - major aggressor Powers, operating simultaneously but largely separately on two continents, inevitably raises complex theories and debates. Each participating power has its own history, and each one must take account of various influences upon the behaviour of its soldiers and statesmen. His wide-ranging collection of original essays, each by an international expert in their field, covers all aspects of the subject and highlights the controversy that continues to characterise current thinking on the origins of the war. Going beyond the usual Eurocentric approach, Part I examines the roles of all seven of the Great Powers (including Japan and the USA), as well as the parts played by several of the lesser Powers, such as Czechoslovakia, Poland and China. Part II contains chapters which explore key themes that cannot be fully understood within the context of any single country. These themes include the role of ideology, propaganda, intelligence, armaments, economics, diplomacy, the neutral states, peace movements, and the social science approach to war. Written in clear, jargon-free prose, together these essays provide a comprehensive single-volume text for students and teachers, and are essential reading for all with an interest in the debates surrounding the causes of World War Two.

Demonizing the Other
Demonizing the Other

Author: Robert S. Wistrich

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-03-07

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 1135852448

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At the close of the twentieth century the stereotyping and demonization of 'others', whether on religious, nationalist, racist, or political grounds, has become a burning issue. Yet comparatively little attention has been paid to how and why we fabricate images of the 'other' as an enemy or 'demon' to be destroyed. This innovative book fills that gap through an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural approach that brings together a distinguished array of historians, anthropologists, psychologists, literary critics, and feminists. The historical sweep covers Greco-Roman Antiquity, the MIddle Ages, and the MOdern Era. Antisemitism receives special attention because of its longevity and centrality to the Holocaust, but it is analyzed here within the much broader framework of racism and xenophobia. The plurality of viewpoints expressed in this volume provide fascinating insights into what is common and what is unique to the many varieties of prejudice, stereotyping, demonization, and hatred.