"Beneath the surface [of our society]," writes historian Robert Wistrich, are "ancient myths, dark hatreds, and irrational fantasies [that] continue to nourish antisemitism." But the larger question has to do with why we are so prone to believe them. To that end, Steven K. Baum has an answer. In this book, Baum carefully guides the reader through the social mind and explains how the formation of social beliefs can be used as a narrative to determine reality. He offers a new perspective reg...

In what we tell ourselves is an age of reason, we are behaving increasingly irrationally. An astonishing number of people subscribe to celebrity endorsed cults, Mayan armageddon prophecies, scientism, and other varieties of new age, anti-enlightenment philosophies. Millions more advance popular conspiracy theories: AIDS was created in a CIA laboratory, Princess Diana was assassinated, and the 9/11 attacks were an inside job.In The World Turned Upside Down, Melanie Phillips explains...

Twenty-five years ago, Edward Said's Orientalism spawned a generation of scholarship on the denigrating and dangerous mirage of "the East" in the Western colonial mind. But "the West" is the more dangerous mirage of our own time, Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit argue, and the idea of "the West" in the minds of its self-proclaimed enemies remains largely unexamined and woefully misunderstood. Occidentalism is their groundbreaking investigation of the demonizing fantasies an...

A groundbreaking — and terrifying — examination of the widespread resurgence of antisemitism in the 21st century, by the prize-winning and #1 internationally bestselling author of Hitler's Willing Executioners.Antisemitism never went away, but since the turn of the century it has multiplied beyond what anyone would have predicted. It is openly spread by intellectuals, politicians and religious leaders in Europe, Asia, the ...

Conversations with Elie Wiesel is a far-ranging dialogue with the Nobel Peace Prize-winner on the major issues of our time and on life’s timeless questions.In open and lively responses to the probing questions and provocative comments of Richard D. Heffner—American historian, noted public television moderator/producer, and Rutgers University professor—Elie Wiesel covers fascinating and often perilous political and spiritual ground, expounding on issues global and l...

For thirty years the director of the Wiener Library in London--the leading institute for the study of anti-Semitism--Walter Laqueur here offers both a comprehensive history of anti-Semitism as well as an illuminating look at the newest wave of this phenomenon. Laqueur begins with an invaluable historical account of this pernicious problem, tracing the evolution from a predominantly religious anti-Semitism--stretching back to the middle ages--to a racial anti-Semitism that developed in the ...

"Powerful" essays from a founder of the Peace Now movement and advocate for a two-state solution ( Library Journal).The haunting poetry of [Oz's] prose and the stunning logic of his testimony make a potent mixture." — Washington Post Book WorldAmos Oz was one of the first voices of conscience to advocate for a two-state solution. As a founding member of the Peace Now movement, Oz has spent over thirty-five years speaking out on this issue, a...

Something has changed.After the horrors of World War II, people everywhere believed that it could never happen again, but today the evidence is unmistakable that anti-Semitism is dramatically on the rise once more. The torching of European synagogues, suicide terror in Israel, the relentless comparison of the Israelis to Nazis, the paranoid post–September 11 Internet-bred conspiracy theories, the Holocaust-denial literature spreading throughout the Arab world, the ...

**In these impassioned and inspiring essays, based on his 1993 Reith Lectures, Edward Said explores what it means to be an intellectual."Said is a brilliant and unique amalgam of scholar, aesthete and political activist. . . . He challenges and stimulates our thinking in every area." --Washington Post Book World**Are intellectuals merely the servants of special interests or do they have a larger responsibility? In these wide-ranging essays, one of our most brillian...

“Adrienne Rich is the Blake of American letters.”—Nadine GordimerAcross more than three decades Adrienne Rich’s essays have been praised for their lucidity, courage, and range of concerns. In A Human Eye, Rich examines a diverse selection of writings and their place in past and present social disorders and transformations. Beyond literary theories, she explores from many angles how the arts of language have acted on and been shaped by their creators’ world...

**From an eminent scholar of Yiddish literature and of Jewish history, a bold reconceptualization of the Jewish relationship to power and powerlessness“[A] brilliant analysis. . . certainly a book for our times—courageous, honest, and cogent.” —Jewish Book CouncilPart of the Jewish Encounter series**Taking in everything from the Kingdom of David to the Oslo Accords, Ruth Wisse offers a radical new way to think about the Jewish relationship to power. Traditi...

The majority of children who survived the Holocaust, whether in hiding or in labour and concentration camps, remained silent about their wartime experiences.Those who wanted to talk, were often silenced by well-meaning adults who advised them to forget the past and get on with their lives.The memories and traumas simmered for nearly forty years, each child growing into adulthood thinking they alone struggled with the problems of traumatic memory, identity confusion and othe...