Wow! eBook
Anti-Judaism
Author(s): David Nirenberg (Author)
- Publisher: Head of Zeus
- Publication Date: 1 July 2013
- Language: English
- Print length: 624 pages
- ISBN-10: 1781851131
- ISBN-13: 9781781851135
Book Description
A magisterial history, ranging from antiquity to the present, that reveals anti-Judaism to be a mode of thought deeply embedded in the Western tradition.
There is a widespread tendency to regard anti-Judaism – whether expressed in a casual remark or implemented through pogrom or extermination campaign – as somehow exceptional: an unfortunate indicator of personal prejudice or the shocking outcome of an extremist ideology married to power.
But, as David Nirenberg argues in this ground-breaking study, to confine anit-Judaism to the margins of our culture is to be dangerously complacent. Anti-Judaism is not an irrational closet in the vast edifice of Western thought, but rather one of the basic tools with which that edifice was constructed.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘In this remarkable book, the development of a way of thinking is traced with scholarly rigour’
The Times.‘A truly monumental book. Dark as its subject may be, it is full of delights … This is a book that will – and should – stop you in your tracks’
Sunday Times.‘Hugely impressive and brilliantly argued scholarly work … Nirenberg asks tough questions about our intellectual roots’
Irish Mail on Sunday.‘This richly fascinating “history of a way of thinking” takes us to some unexpected places.
The Merchant of Venice is here of course, but such ingrained prejudice even crops up in a diet book of 1599. Sadly for modern enlightenment, Nirenberg ends by contemplating “the future’s dangers”‘ The Independent.
