Description
Book SynopsisIn Geography of Hope, French sociologist and historian Pierre Birnbaum examines the work of the some of the prominent Jewish social scientists of the past two centuries in order to analyze their range of responses to the tensions between the Enlightenment call for universalism and the reality of Jewish particularism.
Trade Review"Pierre Birnbaum's
Geography of Hope is a penetrating analysis of the grappling of eight prominent Jewish social thinkers. . . Birnbaum's scholarship is meticulous and uncompromising. The book is detailed and well argued. . . And as in other grand interpretations, the well-versed scholar will be surprised to learn how the great experiment of humanity—the Enlightenment—reproduced anti-Semitic attempts to abolish Judaism while promising it new avenues for regeneration. In his thorough and compassionate analysis, Birnbaum charts the geography of this historical movement, suggesting that perhaps true enlightenment is indeed coming."—Gad Yair,
American Journal of Sociology"Birnbaum offers a fascinating rendering of the last hundred years of Jewish self-fashioning in the diaspora founded on what one might call the reversal of Jewish modernity....It is the beginning, perhaps, of a new canon, making social theory, if not the new 'theology of Judaism.'"—Shaul Magid
American Historical Review"Pierre Birnbaum's
Geography of Hope: Exile, the Enlightenment, disassimilation is a rich, complex, and occasionally perplexing book. ...clearly, a prodigious amount of research and thought has gone into the making of it. This sprawling, multi-subject volume is also a deeply personal and passionate book."—
Times Literary SupplementTable of Contents@fmct:Contents @toc2:Introduction: Toward a Counterhistory 1 1. Karl Marx: Around a Surprising Encounter with Heinrich Graetz 000 2. 'mile David Durkheim: The Memory of Masada 000 3. Georg Simmel: The Stranger, from Berlin to Chicago 000 4. Raymond Aron: An "Authentic French Jew" in Search of His Roots 000 5. Hannah Arendt: Hannah and Rahel, "Fugitives from Palestine" 000 6. Isaiah Berlin: The Awakening of a Wounded Nationalism 000 7. Michael Walzer: The End of Whispering 000 8. Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi: A Home for "Fallen Jews" 000 Conclusion: Exile, the Enlightenment, Disassimilation 000 @toc4:Notes 000
