Antisemitism: Its History and Causes
New York: The International Library Publishing Co., ©1903. First American Edition. First published in French in 1894, this work by the Jewish anarchist and journalist Bernard Lazare surveys hostility toward Jews from antiquity through nineteenth-century European nationalism. Its fifteen chapters examine Christian theology, medieval persecution, anti-Jewish literature, emancipation, racial theories, and the economic tensions surrounding commerce and finance. Later chapters consider Jewish participation in revolutionary movements and the relationship between antisemitism, capitalism, and social change.
An influential and deeply ambivalent study of antisemitism, Lazare reproduces prejudicial generalizations and assigns considerable responsibility to Jewish religious exclusiveness, but explicitly disavows antisemitism in his preface. His conclusion rejects its racial, religious, political, and economic accusations as unfounded, locating their persistence principally in prevailing social conditions. Still, the book's criticism of Jews was often appropriated by anti-Semites and it was even republished by the Britons during the 1960s. Lazare's views on Jews were altered following his involvement in the Dreyfus case and he became much more vocal in his defense of the Jewish people. The book was later republished by the University of Nebraska Press in 1995. Uncommon in any edition.
8vo. Blue ribbed cloth stamped in gilt, 384 pp. Chewing with some loss along the crown, cloth also nibbled along the top of the rear board edge; some pages with marks in the margins; unidentified stamp of "Le Service Secret Universel - Vehmgericht" to the rear pastedown. Item #15282
Price: $300.00