Auschwitz and After: Race, Culture, and the Jewish Question in France

Book Description

The memory of the Holocaust and the "Jewish question" have been key issues in French political, cultural and intellectual life for the past fifty years. Since Auschwitz, every word evoking its past either dissimulates guilt or simply denies the reality of the extermination that took place. Immediately following World War II, discussion of French participation in the "Final Solution" became taboo. Support for a massive inquiry into the many crimes of collaboration became an impossibilty because too many Frenchmen felt guilty because of their complicity during the war. Collaborators went back "into the closet" and the sins of the past were magically eradicated.

Beginning with Marcel Ophüs's documentary The Sorrow and the Pity (1970) there has been an attempt to question the idea of a totally unified, courageous and resistant wartime France. Even more startling have been the increasingly shocking revelations that the politics of collaboration were a mere extension of a deep-seated Frenchanti-Semitic tradition. In the shadow of these developments French writers and philosophers today are reflecting on the meaning of Jewish identity in the contemporary world.

Auschwitz and After analyzes for the first time how the memory of Auschwitz and the collaboration continue to haunt the French. These critical evaluations are accompanied by provocative essays on the "Jewish Question" and the politics of race as they have been studied by writers, historians, philosophers and film makers in postwar France. Auschwitz and After offers an extraordinary compendium of critics of French culture treating subjects as diverse as: the representation of the Holocaust and the politics of revisionism; anti-Semitism in contemporary France; the literature of Jews writing in French; the literature of the French writing on Jews; the post-Auschwitz philosophy of Blanchot, Derrida, Levinas and Lyotard; images of the occupation in the films of Ophüls, Chabrol, Truffaut and Malle; war memories and autobiographical writing; and the construction of Jewish identity in Sartre, Aron, Lévi-Strauss and Finkielkraut.

Contributors: Geoffrey Hartman, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Elaine Marks, Susan Rubin Suleiman, Judith Friedlander, Alain Finkielkraut, Lawrence D. Kritzman, Jeanine Parisier Plottel, Allen Stoekl, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Emmanuel Levinas, Ora Avni, Jeffrey Mehlman, Warren Motte, Ronnie Scharfman, Richard Stamelman, Naomi Greene, Nelly Furman, Herman Rapaport.

Hitler, Germans, and the Jewish Question

Average customer rating:

Reads like DR dissertation

Hitler, Germans, and the Jewish Question
Sarah Ann Gordon
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Discrimination & Racism | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Nonfiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0691101620

Book Description

This book probes the background of the ultimately unexplainable evil of our century, the deliberate and unprovoked murder of millions of European Jews and goes on to explore German reactions to that evil. Depicting the emergence in Welmar Germany of a new type of extreme anti-Semite, of which Hitler was the paramount example, Sarah Gordon discusses a number of related questions about the role of anti Semitism in the rise of the Nazis and draws on hitherto unexamined Gestapo files, new data on court sentences, and a variety of other sources to describe the tiny numbers of courageous Germans who opposed Nazi anti-Semitism.

Customer Reviews:

Reads like DR dissertation.......2005-03-30

Professor Gordon's thesis provides possible explanations as to the lack of revolt or uprising by the German people during the atrocities perpetrated by Hitler and the Nazis against the Jews and other `inferior races'. Gordon provides a well researched piece but the style of writing indicates this is Gordon's doctoral dissertation which may make it more complicated that necessary. A vital resource for understanding the intricacies of Hitler's influence over Germany.

The Future of a Negation: Reflections on the Question of Genocide (Texts and Contexts)

Average customer rating:

Confused French intellectual!

The Future of a Negation: Reflections on the Question of Genocide (Texts and Contexts)
Alain Finkielkraut
Manufacturer: University of Nebraska Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Jewish | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Ethics & Morality | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Demography | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

The Future of a Negation is a crucial statement on the Holocaust—and on Holocaust denial—from Alain Finkielkraut, one of the most acclaimed and influential intellectuals in contemporary Europe.

The book examines the Holocaust, its origins in modern European thought and politics, and recent “revisionist” attempts to deny its full dimensions and, in some cases, its very existence as historical fact. Finkielkraut’s central topic is the impulse toward “negation” of the Nazi horrors: the arguments made by many people, of varying political orientations, that “the gas chambers are a hoax or, in any case, an unverifiable rumor.” In addition, Finkielkraut looks at other instances of twentieth-century mass murder and at arguments made by contemporary politicians and intellectuals that similarly deny the full extent of these other atrocities. An original, fearless book, The Future of a Negation is an essential contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust and of genocidal politics and thought in our century.

Customer Reviews:

Confused French intellectual!.......2001-07-31

This book focuses on Hitlerýs attempt to exterminate the Jews and on recent efforts by some French writers, principally Robert Faurisson, to ýnegateý this historical fact. Notoriously, a group of French Trotskyists has consistently backed Faurisson. So too has the US academic Noam Chomsky, who describes Faurisson as an ýapolitical liberalý when he has been well known in France as a pro-Nazi and anti-Semite since the late 1940s.

Finkielkraut explains that these leftists try to minimise Hitlerýs crimes in order to justify their dogmatic belief that all states are equally oppressive. They refuse to differentiate between fascism and democracy, between the Nazis and the Allies, or between Hitler and Stalin.

However, Finkielkraut himself ýnegatesý World War Twoýs main result, Nazismýs destruction. He thinks all politics still revolves round the question of racism, particularly anti-Semitism, writing that ýThe Faurisson affair is therefore situated at the core of our intellectual lives.ý This overestimate of racismýs importance corrodes all political judgments in the direction of liberalism.

For instance, the Introduction by Richard Golsan, a professor at Texas A&M University, describes all struggle against capitalism as anti-Semitic. He writes of Wilhelm Liebknecht, the renowned German socialist leader: ýWhile the logic employed by Liebknecht is not overtly anti-Semitic, it is implicitly so to the extent that Jews were associated with capital and thereby implicated in the abuses of the latter in the suppression of the working class.ý This pro-capitalist flipside of liberalism also appears in Finkielkrautýs sneers at ýdreams of revolutioný and his ritual slanders of the Soviet Union and Stalin.

Amazon.com

Cultural historian Peter Gay (The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, Freud: A Life for Our Time) applies his considerable analytic skills to his memoir of his early years as a Jew in 1930s Berlin. Light-haired, blue-eyed, and culturally assimilated, the Frohlich family, as they were then known, convinced themselves that, despite the growth spurt of the Nazi party, anti-Semitism was on the wane among the German populous. Gay recalls that his daily life was relatively unaffected by the Totalitarian regime. That is until 1933, when, according to law, he became a Jew overnight. Soon the family found their living quarters shrinking and their awareness of their plight growing (though no one could possibly conceive of what would come). Though still a boy, Gay remembers that "one of the greatest moments in my life" came when the German women's relay team dropped their baton at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Then came Kristallnacht, which crystallized the family's sublimated fears and precipitated their flight from their home. After a certain suspenseful series of necessary deceits and circuitous travels, the family began their new life in America--12-year-old Peter spoke barely a word of English. Now, decades later, Gay employs his new native tongue to uncover the psychological impulses that fed his parents' decision to stay in Berlin as long as they did and governed his own behavior as a boy. The result is credible answer to the question: How could they have stayed?

Book Description

In this poignant book, a renowned historian tells of his youth as an assimilated, antireligious Jew in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1939. Peter Gay describes his family, the life they led, and the reasons they did not emigrate sooner. In so doing he provides a curiously neglected perspective to the history of German Jewry.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting, different, well-worth reading.......2007-05-26

I usually make a point of not re-reading other Amazon reviews before writing my own review of a book I've just finished, but in this case, for some reason, I strayed from my usual practice...

I'm surprised that few of my fellow reviewers have mentioned how amusing Peter Gay's book is - this is the one aspect that drew me in when I finally got around to reading "My German Question" - his description of projecting anti-semitism on a German money changer when returning to Germany as an adult. I found his self-deprecating self-analysis very funny and very entertaining.

Many people, including non-jews, who pay attention to such things, feel ambivalent about modern Germany. I myself, an erstwhile German Literature scholar, have said things in anger that could probably get me arrested (I have since been told that it is actually illegal to call someone a Nazi in Germany today), to a native who had taken my seat at the Hofbrauhaus. One of the minor disappointments of my life was to discover that Germans today are not obsessed with the question of German collective guilt - that Germany exists only in the novels of Heinrich Boell, from what I can tell.

I agree with those who have noted that Gay has a tendency to tell us that times were tough, without really describing what specifically was tough about it, in detail. We read a lot about his strategies for coping with his isolation as a Jew in Nazi Germany, and I found this very interesting, but I missed seeing more description of what it was exactly he was coping with.

The book makes a very interesting companion to Wolfgang Samuel's "German Boy" and especially "Coming to Colorado" which I also read recently. It's ironic that both Samuels and Gay should end up in Denver, of all places.

One minor frustration with this paperback edition: the book is tall and thin, an annoying form factor that I did not enjoy holding. I probably would not buy this book if I had picked it up browsing in a bookstore, and I put off reading it after ordering from Amazon simply because I didn't like the shape. In the end however, I'm glad I overcame this deterrent!

Quiet, passionate and thoughtful memoir .......2005-07-12

Peter Gay's elegant, unsparingly honest testament to the Berlin he knew as a young person is unlike any other memoir I've encountered. One would think, reading some of these other reviews, that Gay should be faulted for not suffering enough. He explains his own passage through childhood in an honest, decent way, and not without humor, either. This quiet, passionate and thoughtful memoir is the work of a disciplined historian whose writing is scrupululously honest and is remarkably free of the usual taint of egotism that characterizes so many memoirs. A valuable document of social history as well as a satisfying read.

Mixed Reaction To This Book.......2003-12-12

I first became annoyed with the author for talking and intellectually telling us his story in the manner he does. He was one of the few Jews in Berlin who was able to continue his life with family, friends and others until late in the decade. He tells us but shares little about feelings or what it was like emotionally to be there. What did he feel attending a "Gymnasium" with non Jewish Germans long after most Jews could have. Was there conflict and ambivilance, guilt? The discription of his first return to Germany in the early 60's is gripping. Soon a profound sorrow and rage for this educated and intellectlal man overcame me. He indeed was a victim of the Holocaust as much as any other victim albiet he was lukier than some. As a psychiatrist I've treated many holocaust survivors and their children. He actually explains though indirectly that his ultimate survival as an integrated person lied in his ability to repress, supress and disconnect from much of the horror. I wanted something that he could not give me. I believe he is a hero for writing this book and exposing as much as does to himself and others. It is so easy to become angry with the victim. He has surely suffered his share in life. His survival is his badge of courage.
Jo Ann Terdiman

the lucky one.......2003-08-13

It is perhaps best to begin by saying what this deeply personal and moving account is not. It is not the memoir of a man whose mother or father "had been hauled to a concentration camp" (p. 22). This is the memoir of "one of the lucky ones" (p.22). It is nonetheless, a tale of a survivor.

It is the story of a man whose hormones forced him, a young adolescent Jew, to look at the hated newspaper Sturmer which portrayed Jews as evilly lusting after pure Aryan girls but which "could not leave sex alone." And while he looked at the images of the dangerous cockroach-like Jew lusting after pure beauties-him-he grew of age. Is it to be wondered at that he did not, as he tells us, lose his virginity until long after university?

And yet, Peter Gay was one of the lucky ones. He only lost two members of his family to the gas chambers. Both were blond and, in my opinion though not Peter's, rather pretty. One of them played Germania in school plays. The Nazis (or perhaps ordinary Germans? Or maybe Poles, Croats, Latvians?) gassed her. Peter, however, was not gassed. He was not even in a concentration camp. Peter was one of the lucky ones.

All he did was live in a world, a Berlin that became smaller and smaller. Not only could he not do certain things but more and more he could not go certain places, be on certain streets, or associate with certain people. Non-Jewish doctors for example. And the radio and announcements and the laws and the newspapers made it plain to him that he, a Jew, was a "blot on humanity" with whom "true" Germans should not associate. Gradually, his world became his immediate family and his aunts and uncles. Gradually, gradually he became a true pariah.

Because he had become a Jew by dictat. For Peter makes it clear that his family was (and took pride in being) an assimilated German family. They did not think of themselves as Jews or as pariahs. To them madmen were running their country: Germany. And they were the true Germans. None of this, of course, impressed the Nazis and since the madmen had the power, they, the true Germans, had to leave. With a sensitive boy who was suffering from depression. A boy who was one of the lucky ones.

And finally this is the story of the lucky boy grown into a man; a man who tries to reconcile himself to his Berlin. A boy/man who wants to desperately say (as did President Kennedy but in proper German) Ich bin Berliner but who cannot quite do so. A man who still roots for Hertha H.S.C. (a German soccer team) and who "regrets architectural adventurism that is working toward effacing the unique atmosphere of [Berlin]" (204) but who cannot quite say that he is a Berliner. A man who insists on being an American in the city of his birth; a man to whom Nazi Berlin clings like shards of Kristallnacht glass.

For, in the end this lucky boy/man is a survivor. Because the Nazis made him a Jew by dictat.

troubled feelings.......2001-03-14

As a historian I was recently confronted with a request by one of my students to find memoirs of a young Jewish person who had lived in the 1930s in Germany. Looking for memoirs of that type in English proved to be difficult. Most childhood recollections are anyhow problematic - due to the time difference and the natural lapses in memory. Then I stumbled across Peter Gay's book. After having read the book I decided to go to Amazon to see once again what other people thought about the book.

Indeed, I found mixed reviews concentrating on Peter Gay as the scholar or Peter Gay as the survivor etc. I am German myself and on top of it a history professor who is teaching right now a course on Collaboration and Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Europe. So, the book became interesting to me from several perspectives. While I did not learn anything new as far as his years in Berlin are concerned, his judgments on Germany and the Germans troubled me deeply. Although I could not share Peter Gay's eye for an eye statements - especially concerning the bombing of Dresden and the acts of Zionist terrorists in early Israel (terrorism remains terrorism - no matter what side) - I was once again confronted with my German identity. Since I am born in 1959 I had nothing to do with those times directly - nevertheless my compatriots overall did commit those crimes to humanity. Gay's statements troubled me in the sense that once again I asked myself to which extent could we Germans have prevented this from happening. What could the "ordinary German" - to remain in Christopher Browning's words - have done? The resistance of Gay's friend Busse did not do much either in preventing the Holocaust! So, what could have been the solution?

Average customer rating:

I know this guy!

The Identity Question: Blacks and Jews in Europe and America
Robert Philipson
Manufacturer: University Press of Mississippi
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Jewish | World | History | Subjects | Books
African-American Studies | Special Groups | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Ethnic Studies | Special Groups | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Special Groups | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Minority Studies | Special Groups | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1578062934

Customer Reviews:

I know this guy!.......2004-03-31

My name is Joe Philipson. The guy that wrote this book is my uncle.

I just thought everyone would like to know that...yah he won some awards and stuff for it.

Book Description

In 1391 many of the Jews of Spain were forced to convert to Christianity, creating a new group whose members would be continually seeking a niche for themselves in society. The question of identity was to play a central role in the lives of these and later converts whether of Spanish or Portuguese heritage, for they could not return to Judaism as long as they remained on the Peninsula, and their place in the Christian world would never be secure. This book considers the history of the Iberian conversos-both those who remained in Spain and Portugal and those who emigrated. Wherever they resided the question of identity was inescapable. The exile who chose France or England, where Jews could not legally reside, was faced with different considerations and options than the converso who chose Holland, a newly formed Protestant country where Jews had not previously resided. Choosing Italy entailed a completely different set of options and dilemmas. Renee Levine Melammed compares and contrasts the lives of the New Christians of the Iberian Peninsula with those of these countries and the development of their identity and sense of ethnic solidarity with "those of the Nation." Exploring the knotty problem of identity she examines a great variety of individual choices and behaviors. Some conversos tried to be sincere Catholics and were not allowed to do so. Others tried but failed either theologically or culturally. While many eventually opted to form Jewish communities outside the Peninsula, others were unable to make a total commitment to Judaism and became "cultural commuters" who could and did move back and forth between two worlds whereas others had "fuzzy" or attenuated Jewish identities. In addition, the encounter with modernity by the descendants of conversos is examined in three communities, Majorca, Belmonte (Portugal) and the Southwestern United States, revealing that even today the question of identity is still a pressing issue. Offering the only broad historical survey of this fascinating and complex group of migrants, this book will appeal to a wide range of academic and general readers.

Carl Schmitt and the Jews: The ""Jewish Question," the Holocaust, and German Legal Theory (George L. Mosse Series)

Average customer rating:

Carl Schmitt and the Jews: The ""Jewish Question," the Holocaust, and German Legal Theory (George L. Mosse Series)
Raphael Gross
Manufacturer: University of Wisconsin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

History of Ideas | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

General | Law | Subjects | Books

Jurisprudence | Perspectives on Law | Law | Subjects | Books

Legal History | Perspectives on Law | Law | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Tree of Smoke: A Novel

ASIN: 0299222403

Book Description

German jurist and legal theorist Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) significantly influenced Western political and legal thinking in the last century, yet his life and work have also stirred considerable controversy. While his ideas have been used and diffused by prominent philosophers on both the left and the right, such as JÃ¼rgen Habermas and Leo Strauss, his Nazi-era past, especially his active efforts to remove Jewish influence from German law, has cast a cloud over his life and oeuvre. Still, his many supporters have generally been successful in claiming that Schmitt's was an "antisemitism of opportunity," a temporary affectation to gain favor with the Nazis.
In Carl Schmitt and the Jews, available in English for the first time, historian Raphael Gross vigorously repudiates this "opportunism thesis." Through a reading of Schmitt's corpus, some of which became available only after his death, Gross highlights the importance of the "Jewish Question" on the breadth of Schmitt's work. According to Gross, Schmitt's antisemitism was at the core of his workâbefore, during, and after the Nazi era. His influential polarities of "friend and foe," "law and nomos," "behemoth and Leviathan," and "ketechon and Antichrist" emerge from a conceptual template in which "the Jew" is defined as adversary, undermining the Christian order with secularization. The presence of this template at the heart of Schmitt's work, Gross contends, calls for a major reassessment of Schmitt's role within contemporary cultural and legal theory.

The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalistic Ideas In Europe

Average customer rating:

The Myth of the Aryan Race.

The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalistic Ideas In Europe
Leon Poliakov
Manufacturer: Barnes & Noble Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Customer Reviews:

The Myth of the Aryan Race........2006-06-07

_The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalistic Ideas in Europe_ by Leon Poliakov is a fascinating account of the development of the Aryan myth and European racial ideology. While the author is biased by a Freudian perspective, his research is nevertheless very good and provides much insight into the development of racialist and nationalist ideology. This book is divided into two sections: "Early Myths of Origin", focusing on the Aryan myth within individual European nations, and "The Myth of Aryan Origins", focusing on the Aryan myth as it developed from the medieval period through the Enlightenment and into the Twentieth century. The Aryan myth proved to be particularly disastrous for European history given the horrors inflicted by the Nazi and Fascist regimes; however, its true nature has been perhaps perverted. It is also interesting to note the contrast between the earlier biblical mythology surrounding the origins of the races and the later Darwinistic usurpation of that mythology as the Aryan myth came to be perverted by Hitler and his Nazi cronies.

The first section of this book deals with "The Myth of Aryan Origins". Here, a discussion of various European countries is related and the role that racial myths played in their foundations and the subsequent nationalisms that arose from them. Of particular interest, is the role that genealogy played in the development of racial origins for the various aristocracies and monarchies of European nations. In particular, the Gothic race, Celts, Teutons, and various Germanic races came to play prominent roles in the development of racial myth as the superior race. The author begins with a discussion of Spain and the Gothic myth. Here, the author notes the role of racial myth (the myth of Gothic origins) in the conflict between Old Christians and the conversos (Muslim converts) in the time of the Inquisition. Following this discussion of Spain, the author turns his attention to France. Here, the role of the Gauls and the Celts is explained as the mythical origins of French nationalism. The author next turns his attention to England, noting the role of the Celts and Normans. Again the Gothic myth of origins is to play a primary part. In addition, the English often believed themselves to be descended from a lost tribe of Israel and therefore related to the Hebrews directly. Following this the author turns his attention to Italy. Again he notes the importance of racial myth, particularly as it influenced the development of Catholicism, the role of the papacy, and the conflict between Guelph and Ghibelline. Next, the author turns his attention to Germany. Again the role of the early Germanic tribes (as mentioned by Tacitus) is considered, as well as the German mythology developed by Reformers such as Luther. Following this the author turns his attention to Russia. Again the role of race played an important part in the development of tsarist Russia. Indeed, many of the tsars claimed for themselves Germanic ancestry (often claiming descent from the Scandinavian Rurik) against the common Russian peasant. In addition to these racial myths, various biblical myths played an important part in the history of these nations and the nationalism that developed from them. In particular, it must be noted that frequently the Europeans regarded themselves as descendents of Japheth, the Asians descendents of Shem, and the Africans descendents of Ham (the sons of Noah). In the medieval feudal system, Japheth was regarded as the ancestor of the nobility, Shem as the ancestor of the clerks, and Ham as the ancestor of the serfs. This is particularly interesting when it is noted that biblically the descendents of Ham were regarded as occupying the role of slaves having a curse placed upon them in the book of Genesis. The author also mentions an early apocryphal anti-Jewish Arab Gospel in which the "children of Israel" are regarded as lower than Africans. This discussion provides the context for the author's subsequent discussion of racial mythology as it came to play itself out in the period of the Enlightenment.

Following this first section, the author next turns his attention to "The Myth of Aryan Origins", focusing on the development of the Aryan myth from the time of the middle ages (where it was based primarily on biblical mythology) to the time of the Enlightenment and into the modern era (where the racial myth came to rest more and more on scientific justification). To begin this discussion, the author turns first to the "antecedents" of the Aryan myth, mentioning the pre-Adamite theory. According to this theory, not all men were descended from the common ancestor Adam and there were men before Adam. In particular, the role of the Marranos (crypto-Jewish converts to Catholicism who retained their Jewishness) is emphasized in their belief that the Jews constituted a superior race descended from Adam. From this the author turns his attention to the importance of the discovery of the New World, noting the role of the American Indians (the "savages") and the various theories proposed by Europeans concerning their humanity, as well as the role of blacks. In particular, the author contrasts the idea of the "Noble Savage" advanced by certain philosophers and theologians of the time with other ideas of the "savages" that proliferated then. Following this the author turns his attention to the Enlightenment proper, noting the development of various "utopias of reason". In the anthropology of the Enlightenment, the author contrasts the role of less extreme racial theories (that of the monogenists, which were not regarded as heretical by observing Christians) with more extreme racial theories (that of the polygenists, which were frequently regarded as being heretical). The author shows the development of the Aryan myth among the Enlightenment philosophers, mentioning for example Voltaire and Rousseau but also the development of this myth within German idealistic and romantic philosophy, mentioning Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Schelling, and Schlegel. The author shows how the Aryan myth came to turn more and more towards an Indo-Germanic or Indian origin (for example in the works of Schlegel and Max Muller) after earlier biblical theories were displaced. The author also mentions the development of the Aryan myth in such surprising places as the egoistic political philosophy of Max Stirner and the various racist doctrines of Marx and Engels (certainly an eye-opener!). In addition, the author mentions the role of anti-Semitism in the formation of the Aryan myth among such anti-Christian theorists as Ernst Renan and others who cast doubt on the historical Jesus. The author also turns his attention to the theories of such individuals as the elitist Gobineau. As the myth of the Aryan race developed, the early Christian racial beliefs came to be more and more replaced by quasi-scientific justifications for racial science. Thus, we see in the development of Darwinism among such thinkers as Haeckel, Spencer, and Darwin, an underlying racial doctrine. The author also provides an examination of much of the underpinnings of early eugenics theories (mentioning for example the Nordic League, but also noting such early opponents to eugenics as Chesterton). Finally, the author turns his attention to the sort of Aryanism that eventually made its way into the Nazi regime. He notes for example the beliefs of the composer Richard Wagner and the break with Nietzsche. He also notes the development of the Aryan myth among those who opted for an "Aryan Christ" freed from Semitic origins and the role of Aryan doctrines in the churches. He also notes such notorious Aryan philosophers as Chamberlain and finally Rosenberg. The author also notes the role of the Aryan myth in psychoanalysis mentioning the contrast between Freudian (Semitic) theories and Jungian (Aryan) theories. Finally, the author turns his attention to the role of several Jewish intellectuals such as Rathenau and Weininger (praised by Hitler as the only Jew worthy to live) who saw for themselves a role in the Aryan mythos.

This book provides a fascinating glimpse at the role of myths in the development of nationalisms. In particular, we see how racial mythology (the myth of Aryan origins) was exploited by opportunists in the Twentieth century to create totalitarian regimes. The book is encyclopedic in scope and is sure to provide the definitive account, tracing the development of Aryan mythology in European history.

Average customer rating:

Europe's conscience in decline,
Charles E Shulman
Manufacturer: Argus Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Judaism | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B00085GWQS

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books