New Books In History

I confess I was attracted to this book by the title: Capitalism and the Jews (Princeton, 2010). Capitalism is a touchy subject; Jews are a touchy subject. But capitalism and the Jews, that’s a disaster waiting to happen. I don’t suggest you try this, but just imagine what would happen if you started a water-cooler chat with “Hey, what do you think of capitalism and the Jews?” Not pretty. So, being a bit curious, I wanted to know who would write a book with said title and what they could possibly say that wouldn’t get people calling for their head. Well, here’s what I found out. The book was written by Jerry Muller who, I can tell you with all earnestness, is a very bright fellow, an excellent (and witty) writer, and someone with a load of interesting things to say about capitalism and Jews. Don’t worry, it’s not what you think. Muller’s book is no spittle-encrusted diatribe against greedy, hook-nosed, money-lenders. But neither is it the kind of book that ignores the (too often considered embarrassing or offensive) facts, the central one here being that Jews are, as Muller well puts it, good at capitalism. There is no Judeophobia or Judeophilia to be found in these pages. Rather, there is a fascinating, meditative, and enlightening account of the historical relationship of capitalism and the Jews, predominately in Europe over the last thousand or so years. This book is full of cool-headed, convincing arguments about controversial, oft-asked historical questions: Why are Jews good at capitalism? What made European Jews different from other diaspora communities? What role did the Jews play in the evolution of capitalism? What attracted some Jews to socialism? Why do we think–wrongly as it turns out–that there was an affinity between Jews and communism? How did Jews themselves react to the strong association between capitalism and their faith? How did Christians react to the same association?

If you read this book, and I hope you do, you will be able to sensibly answer all these question. And really, you have no reason not to read it because it is a model of brevity. It’s rare that you find so much packed into so few pages. But that’s what you’d expect, I suppose, out of a very bright fellow, excellent writer, and someone with a load of interesting things to say…

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Tags: Anti-Semitism, Assimilation, Capitalism, Christendom, Christianity, Conspiracy Theories, Early Modern Europe, Enlightenment, Ethnic Cleansing, Exile, Intellectuals, Jews, Middle Ages, Modernity, National Identity, Nationalism, Religion, Renaissance by Marshall Poe
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Of all the events in American history, two are far and away the most troubling: slavery and the near-genocidal war against native Americans. In truth, we’ve dealt much better with the former than the latter. The slaves were emancipated. After a long and painful struggle, their descendants won their full civil rights. Though that struggle is not yet finished, near equality has been reached in many areas of American life. And almost all Americans understand that slavery was wrong. None of this can be said about the campaign against native Americans. Instead of emancipation, the Indians–or rather those left after the slaughter–were “removed” to reservations where their way of life was destroyed. After a long and painful struggle, many of their descendants are still in those reservations and living in poverty. They struggle still, but are not equal to other Americans by most measures. And many Americans refuse to believe that the U.S. was wrong in killing, sequestering, and impoverishing the native Americans.

They are wrong to do so, for we know what happened and why thanks to historians such as Heather Cox Richardson. In her eye-opening new book Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre (Basic Books, 2010) she shows just how calculated, self-serving, and even spiteful the White assault on the Plains Indians was. Despite what they said (mostly to the Indians themselves), the Whites never had any real intention of allowing the Sioux and others to keep their land, maintain their way of life, or even to continue to exist. It was clear to them that the Indians would either become White (meaning would take up farming) or would go. The Whites weren’t exactly cynics; rather they were self-deceiving fatalists. They came to believe that destiny itself compelled them to assimilate or annihilate the Indians.

But destiny didn’t destroy the Plains Indians. The government of the United States of America did.

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Tags: 19th Century, American Midwest, American West, Assimilation, Atrocities, Civil War, Colonialism, Democratic Party, Empires, Frontiers, Genocide, Immigration, Imperialism, Native Americans, Racism, Refugees, Republican Party, Uprisings, Violence, War by Marshall Poe
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Africans were the first migrants because they were the first people. Some 60,000 years ago they left their homeland and in a relatively short period of time (by geological and evolutionary standards) moved to nearly every habitable place on the globe. We are their descendants. The Africans never stopped migrating, but they began to do so with particular vigor beginning about 1400 AD. Patrick Manning tells the story of their movements in his remarkable new book The African Diaspora: A History Through Culture (Columbia UP, 2010). The tale Pat tells might well be divided into three phases: before slavery, during slavery, and after slavery. The middle period usually gets the most attention, but happily Pat well covers the “before” and “after” phases as well. This is an excellent corrective to the standard story because it shows us that for most of modern history African migrants were not really victims, but agents. Prior to the emergence of the international slave trade, they travelled and migrated to North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Near East in large numbers. Slavery of course violently brought millions of them to the Americas. But once it was officially ended (slavery continues to exist today…), the Africans in the diaspora set about considering their rightful place in the world. Should they build lives for themselves “abroad”? Or should they return to their African homeland? Should they integrate? Or should they remain apart? These questions–which are asked by every large diaspora community–were hotly debated in the cultural and political efflorescence of the 20th century. To some extent the debate still goes on; and to an even greater extent the African diaspora continues to grow both in numbers and in power. This is an important and neglected topic, and we should all thank professor Manning for shedding light on it.

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Tags: 15th Century, 16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, 20th Century, Africa, African Americans, Assimilation, Atlantic World, Black Power, Civil Rights Movement, Colonialism, Culture, Emancipation, Exile, Immigration, Imperialism, Migration, National Identity, Race, Racism, Ships, Slave Trade, Slavery, Trade by Marshall Poe
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One night my wife and I were on the road, staying in a hotel in I-don’t-remember-where. I woke up in the middle of the night to find said wife missing. Happily, I saw a light under the bathroom door. There she is, I thought. I fell back asleep. I woke up again sometime later. It was still the middle of the night and that light was still on. Hmm…. What’s up with that? I wonder if she’s okay? I should check. So I got out of bed, lumbered over to the bathroom door, opened it and, well, there she sat. She was not, however, doing what one normally does in the bathroom (though I can’t say what you normally do in a bathroom). Nope. She was sitting on the john (lid down!) reading The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin. “I just couldn’t stop and I didn’t want to wake you up.”

So when I heard that David had a new book coming out–The Long Way Home. An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War (HarperCollins, 2010)–I jumped at the chance to read it and get him on the show. The book tells the stories of twelve Americans who immigrated from Europe to the US around 1900 and then returned to Europe to fight in the Great War for their newly-adopted country. It’s a tale of poverty, hope, escape, new beginnings, disappointments, hard work (for low pay), patriotism, bravery, suffering, death and redemption all told in wonderfully crafted prose. Through the lives of these men and their families David allows us to witness “ethnics” (as they were called) adopting an American identity, and often at a heavy price. They literally fought for the right to be Americans. For those of us born in freedom, their bravery is a reminder of what freedom is worth. (I know that sounds a bit dramatic, but I actually believe it…)

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Tags: 19th Century, 20th Century, Artillery, Assimilation, Ellis Island, France, German Americans, Immigration, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Jewish Americans, National Identity, Norwegian Americans, Polish Americans, Progressive Era, Shell Shock, Slovak Americans, Trenches, War, Working Class, World War I by Marshall Poe
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I’ve got a name for you: Robert Zimmerman (aka Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham). You’ve heard of him. He was a Jewish kid from Hibbing, Minnesota. But he didn’t (as the stereotype would suggest) become a doctor, lawyer, professor or businessman. Nope, the professions were not for him. He loved the American folk legend Woody Guthrie (of “This Land is Your Land” fame). In fact, he wanted to become the next Woodie Guthrie. So he more or less left his Jewish roots, changed his name to Bob Dylan, and immersed himself in American folk music.

Most Americans know this story and others like it. In fact, it seems like a peculiarly American story. But, as you will read in Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern‘s fascinating The Anti-Imperial Choice: The Making of the Ukrainian Jew (Yale, 2009), it’s not. It can be found in–of all places–Ukraine. The story of the Jews in Ukraine is not exactly a happy one (cf. “pogroms”). The relationship between Jews and Ukrainians has always, it seems, been one of mutual mistrust. Therefore it is all the more surprising to find a tradition of Jewish literati who devoted themselves body and soul to the cause of Ukrainian culture and the foundation of a Ukrainian state. But that is in fact what Yohanan has uncovered. The Anti-Imperial Choice discusses five Jewish-born authors who “adopted” (so to say) the Ukrainian movement in favor of the dominant imperial culture (Russian, German, etc.). They were a minority (Jews) and they elected to affiliate with a minority (Ukrainians). Yohanan does a masterful job of describing the ways in which these authors fused Jewishness and Ukrainianess into a significant literary canon in the Ukrainian language. Remarkable and food for thought indeed.

Let me also add that the book is wonderfully written. It is always amazing to me to see someone write with this level of mastery in a second language. Actually, I think English is Yohanan’s fourth or fifth language (which makes it that much more amazing…).

By the way, it’s our 100th show! Thanks to everyone who’s supported NBH. Please become a fan of the show on Facebook if you haven’t already.

 

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Tags: 19th Century, 20th Century, Ashkenazi Jews, Assimilation, Colonialism, Communism, Culture, Eastern Europe, Empires, Hebrew, Imperialism, Intellectuals, Jews, Marxism, Modernity, National Identity, Nationalism, Religion, Revolution, Russia, Russian Empire, Socialism, Ukraine, Yiddish, Zionism by Marshall Poe
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