León Poliakov

Covering the story of prejudice against Jews from the time of Christ through the rise of Nazi Germany, The History of Anti-Semitism presents in elegant and thoughtful language a balanced, careful assessment of this egregious human failing that is nearly ubiquitous in the history of Europe. From Voltaire to Wagner reviews the period of the European Enlightenment in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when anti-Semitism gradually stopped being an official state policy in most countries. Highlighting the emancipation of Jews as it spread across Europe, Poliakov shows how philosophers, statesmen, and some theologians became concerned with civil rights, yet the anti-Semitic beliefs of many highly regarded and influential persons remained a major roadblock to true equality and justice. The volume ends with the development of racial anti-Semitic theories bound up in the emerging modern sciences.

Leon Poliakov, George KlinCovering the story of prejudice against Jews from the time of Christ through the rise of Nazi Germany, The History of Anti-Semitism presents in elegant and thoughtful language a balanced, careful assessment of this egregious human failing that is nearly ubiquitous in the history of Europe. Suicidal Europe, 1870-1933 traces the development of a belief among Europe's educated classes in an eventual Jewish domination of the West. Revealing the embedded myths about Jewish bankers and Jewish Bolsheviks in European rhetoric and histories, Poliakov demonstrates that the steady rise in anti-Semitism and suspicion of Jews in the late nineteenth century--highlighted by the Dreyfus affair--and its eventual eruption in the rise of the Nazi party in Germany in the 1920s are part of the same thread of fear and hatred that reaches back to the beginning of the first millennium.

Léon Poliakov, qui a consacré avec une exceptionnelle objectivité, son oeuvre à l'histoire de l'antisémitisme, aborde dans ce nouveau volume le vaste problème de la formation et de l'évolution du myt

Leon Poliakov, Richard HowardCovering the story of prejudice against Jews from the time of Christ through the rise of Nazi Germany, The History of Anti-Semitism presents in elegant and thoughtful language a balanced, careful assessment of this egregious human failing that is nearly ubiquitous in the history of Europe. Suicidal Europe, 1870-1933 traces the development of a belief among Europe's educated classes in an eventual Jewish domination of the West. Revealing the embedded myths about Jewish bankers and Jewish Bolsheviks in European rhetoric and histories, Poliakov demonstrates that the steady rise in anti-Semitism and suspicion of Jews in the late nineteenth century--highlighted by the Dreyfus affair--and its eventual eruption in the rise of the Nazi party in Germany in the 1920s are part of the same thread of fear and hatred that reaches back to the beginning of the first millennium.

Covering the story of prejudice against Jews from the time of Christ through the rise of Nazi Germany, The History of Anti-Semitism presents in elegant and thoughtful language a balanced, careful assessment of this egregious human failing that is nearly ubiquitous in the history of Europe. Suicidal Europe, 1870-1933 traces the development of a belief among Europe's educated classes in an eventual Jewish domination of the West. Revealing the embedded myths about Jewish bankers and Jewish Bolsheviks in European rhetoric and histories, Poliakov demonstrates that the steady rise in anti-Semitism and suspicion of Jews in the late nineteenth century--highlighted by the Dreyfus affair--and its eventual eruption in the rise of the Nazi party in Germany in the 1920s are part of the same thread of fear and hatred that reaches back to the beginning of the first millennium.

Esta obra de Léon Poliakov, publicada a los seis años del final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, puede considerarse acta fundacional de lo que hoy conocemos como estudios sobre el Holocausto; es precedente imprescindible de estudios posteriores como los de Gerald Reitlinger, Raul Hilberg o Hannah Arendt. Poliakov analiza los origenes ideologicos y sociales del antisemitismo nacionalsocialista acudiendo a los archivos del Tercer Reich y a los testigos directos de la barbarie.Al año siguiente de su publicacion en Francia, Hannah Arendt describia en el numero de marzo de 1952 de la revista americana Commentary el brillante libro de Leon Poliakov como el primero en describir las ultimas fases del regimen nazi estrictamente sobre la base de fuentes directas. Añadia ademas que la excelencia del libro podia calibrarse por la cantidad de errores, malentendidos y juicios equivocados que corrige en cada capitulo. Terminaba la pensadora su reseña apuntando que nadie que quiera saber lo que realmente ocurrio y como realmente ocurrio [...] puede permitirse ignorar este estudio.

Uno de los máximos expertos en la historia del racismo y del antisemitismo.León Poliakov examina los principales grupos humanos que han sido, como los judíos, chivos expiatorios en la historia europea, considerados responsables de epidemias, guerras y otros desastres. Durante dos milenios, los judios han sido sistematicamente considerados como los representantes mas genuinos de esa fuerza diabolica que amenazaba el mundo entero. Pero no han sido las unicas victimas, tambien los fueron los cristianos de la Roma pagana, los catolicos papistas de la Inglaterra anglicana, los aristocratas de la Francia revolucionaria, los antisovieticos de la Rusia estaliniana y, en algunas epocas, los jesuitas, los anarquistas, los burgueses