Search results for ""Author Pierre Birnbaum""

Book SynopsisA new appreciation of the extraordinary life and legacy of Leon Blum, the first Jewish prime minister of FranceTrade Review“Twenty years ago, Pierre Birnbaum wrote a brilliant Political History of State Jews in France, and now he has written a beautiful biography of the greatest of the state Jews. Léon Blum has never gotten the recognition he deserves as a French statesman, a socialist leader, and a proud Jew. That will change with this book.”—Michael Walzer, author of The Paradox of Liberation: Secular Revolutions and Religious Counterrevolutions -- Michael Walzer“A succinct, interesting, and compelling overview of the life of French politician and former Prime Minister Léon Blum. Pierre Birnbaum draws on a rich series of primary sources that bring Blum and his adversaries to life.”—Maud S. Mandel, author of Muslims and Jews in France: History of a Conflict -- Maud S. Mandel“…a surprisingly human portrait of the Zionist socialist and three-time prime minister of France.”—Melody Amsel-Arieli, Segula -- Melody Amsel-Arieli * Segula *

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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

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The terrain covered by Paths of Emancipation is vast. The editorial agenda required that 'emancipation' be understood by the contributors in its broadest sense, and that it be set in the context of social and political developments within each state... The result of such painstaking contextualization is a book that is stronger on particulars than it is on more general comparative insights. But this does not detract from the excellence of the individual contributions, or from the historiographical value of the project."--Christopher Clark, Times Literary SupplementTable of ContentsPreface1Emancipation and the Liberal Offer32Dutch Jews in a Segmented Society373From "Schutzjuden" to "Deutsche Staatsburger Judischen Glaubens": The Long and Bumpy Road of Jewish Emancipation in Germany594Between Social and Political Assimilation: Remarks on the History of Jews in France945English Jews or Jews of the English Persuasion? Reflections on the Emancipation of Anglo-Jewry1286Between Separation and Disappearance: Jews on the Margins of American Liberalism1577The Emancipation of Jews in Italy2068From Millet to Minority: Turkish Jewry2389Russian Jewry, the Russian State, and the Dynamics of Jewish Emancipation262List of Contributors285Index287

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Book SynopsisThis is the tale of an accusation of blood libel during a period when France prided itself on its rationality.Trade Review"Expert historians and the general reader alike will find here a wealth of details and a captivating story that will enrich their understanding of ritual murder and host-desecration accusations . . . A Tale of Ritual Murder in the Age of Louis XIV will interest a wide audience. It contributes to the literature about blood libels, the Dreyfus affair, and French-Jewish history more generally."—Yair Mintzker, The Journal of Modern History"Birnbaum's meticulous study presents the political conflict which set the monarchy and the Parliament of Metz against one another, against the background of a centralized power not yet strengthened in this area. At the same time, it illuminates the strong anti-Jewish hostility of the local Christian world."—Anna Foa, European History Quarterly"Pierre Birnbaum's study of a ritual murder trial in seventeenth-century France succeeds in achieving what good microhistories do best: it exposes readers to the fate of a relatively unknown historical event/figure in order to force us to reevaluate our understanding of the past . . . Birnbaum constructs a forceful and dramatic narrative of these harrowing events. The strength of his analysis lies in linking this seventeenth-century trial to twentieth-century political culture . . . This engaging book deserves to be widely read by researchers, students, and the general public."—Sara Beam, Canadian Journal of History"As a distinguished historian of Third Republic France, Birnbaum judiciously exposes how the Lévy trial was used during the Dreyfus Affair . . . For academic libraries for undergraduate studies."—Roger S. Kohn, Association of Jewish Libraries"Pierre Birnbaum, distinguished historian of Third Republic France, has recaptured a tale of 17th-century ritual murder in Lorraine which was cited as precedent by both accusers and supporters of Alfred Dreyfus 230 years later. Birnbaum describes the fabricated murder charges against the Jewish livestock-trader Raphaël Lévy and the epidemic of false accusation against the Jews of Metz for attacking an image of Christ at Eastertime, and reveals the political and economic tensions winding through the affair. A fascinating and deeply moving account of human resistance and mass fear."—Natalie Zemon Davis, University of Toronto"Pierre Birnbaum's riveting microhistory of a forgotten ritual murder case from the 1660s unearths the fraught relations between Jews and Christians in Metz over a century before the French Revolution. He also demonstrates convincingly that the case played a major role in the anti-Semitic propaganda surrounding the Dreyfus Affair. In his brilliant reconstruction, Birnbaum's study takes its place among other classic accounts of ritual murder and blood libel trials from the middle ages and modernity."—David Biale, UC Davis

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Book SynopsisPierre Birnbaum offers a timely reconsideration of the tear-stained pages of Jewish history and the persistence of antisemitism.Trade ReviewWith characteristic understanding, learning, and historical range, Pierre Birnbaum compellingly illuminates central aspects—past and present—of the American Jewish experience. Tears of History provocatively chronicles how antistate white supremacist insurgencies have come to target Jews, transforming prior circumstances in which political antisemitism had proved incapable in the United States to a situation Birnbaum compares to the status of Jews in Weimar Germany and Dreyfus-era France. -- Ira Katznelson, author of Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our TimeIn this chilling book, we get a message from a distinguished scholar of French Jewish history that we may now have entered a dangerous new age. Birnbaum asks readers to contemplate a sea change that seems to be happening in American life, which portends that antisemitism, once absent from the political realm, may be now rearing its ugly head. His history of fringe antisemitism in the American past is well worth reading as we contemplate both present and future. -- Hasia R. Diner, author ofImmigration: An American HistoryAs the leading Jewish historian in France, Birnbaum offers a French perspective on Jewish-American history that compares American antisemitism to its European counterpart. In the process, he calls many myths—including that of American exceptionalism—into question. This interesting, provocative book is more sophisticated than recent books on antisemitism and explores a subject of great contemporary relevance. -- Maurice Samuels, author of The Betrayal of the DuchessTable of ContentsPreface to the American Edition Introduction: On American Happiness 1. Salo Baron, the Golden Country and the Refusal of a Lachrymose History2. The Leo Frank Affair: The Lynching of a Jew3. From the Jew Deal to the Storming of the CapitolConclusion: Kishinev à l’américaine—the End of Hope?NotesIndex

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Book SynopsisIn 1898, the Dreyfus Affair plunged French society into a yearlong frenzy. In Paris and provincial villages throughout the country, angry crowds paraded through the streets, attacking Jews and destroying Jewish-owned businesses. The author guides readers on a tour of France during this tumultuous crisis.Trade Review"An important contribution both to the ever-mounting history of the [Dreyfus] Affair and to the general history of Jewry in the modern period." (Times Literary Supplement) "This meticulous account of the anti-Semitic hysteria that swept France in 1898... makes for terrifying and fascinating reading." (Atlantic Monthly)"

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Book SynopsisPierre Birnbaum offers a timely reconsideration of the tear-stained pages of Jewish history and the persistence of antisemitism.Trade ReviewWith characteristic understanding, learning, and historical range, Pierre Birnbaum compellingly illuminates central aspects—past and present—of the American Jewish experience. Tears of History provocatively chronicles how antistate white supremacist insurgencies have come to target Jews, transforming prior circumstances in which political antisemitism had proved incapable in the United States to a situation Birnbaum compares to the status of Jews in Weimar Germany and Dreyfus-era France. -- Ira Katznelson, author of Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our TimeIn this chilling book, we get a message from a distinguished scholar of French Jewish history that we may now have entered a dangerous new age. Birnbaum asks readers to contemplate a sea change that seems to be happening in American life, which portends that antisemitism, once absent from the political realm, may be now rearing its ugly head. His history of fringe antisemitism in the American past is well worth reading as we contemplate both present and future. -- Hasia R. Diner, author ofImmigration: An American HistoryAs the leading Jewish historian in France, Birnbaum offers a French perspective on Jewish-American history that compares American antisemitism to its European counterpart. In the process, he calls many myths—including that of American exceptionalism—into question. This interesting, provocative book is more sophisticated than recent books on antisemitism and explores a subject of great contemporary relevance. -- Maurice Samuels, author of The Betrayal of the DuchessTable of ContentsPreface to the American Edition Introduction: On American Happiness 1. Salo Baron, the Golden Country and the Refusal of a Lachrymose History2. The Leo Frank Affair: The Lynching of a Jew3. From the Jew Deal to the Storming of the CapitolConclusion: Kishinev à l’américaine—the End of Hope?NotesIndex

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Book SynopsisToo often we think of the modern political state as a universal institution, the inevitable product of History rather than a specific creation of a very particular history. Bertrand Badie and Pierre Birnbaum here persuasively argue that the origin of the state is a social fact, arising out of the peculiar sociohistorical context of Western Europe. Drawing on historical materials and bringing sociological insights to bear on a field long abandoned to jurists and political scientists, the authors lay the foundations for a strikingly original theory of the birth and subsequent diffusion of the state. The book opens with a review of the principal evolutionary theories concerning the origin of the institution proposed by such thinkers as Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. Rejecting these views, the authors set forward and defend their thesis that the state was an invention rather than a necessary consequence of any other process. Once invented, the state was disseminated outside its Western European birthplace either through imposition or imitation. The study concludes with concrete analyses of the differences in actual state institutions in France, Prussia, Great Britain, the United States, and Switzerland.

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