Capitalism and the Jews - Softcover

Muller, Jerry Z.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 069115306X ISBN 13: 9780691153063

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2011

Synopsis

How the fate of the Jews has been shaped by the development of capitalism

The unique historical relationship between capitalism and the Jews is crucial to understanding modern European and Jewish history. But the subject has been addressed less often by mainstream historians than by anti-Semites or apologists. In this book Jerry Muller, a leading historian of capitalism, separates myth from reality to explain why the Jewish experience with capitalism has been so important and complex―and so ambivalent.

Drawing on economic, social, political, and intellectual history from medieval Europe through contemporary America and Israel, Capitalism and the Jews examines the ways in which thinking about capitalism and thinking about the Jews have gone hand in hand in European thought, and why anticapitalism and anti-Semitism have frequently been linked. The book explains why Jews have tended to be disproportionately successful in capitalist societies, but also why Jews have numbered among the fiercest anticapitalists and Communists. The book shows how the ancient idea that money was unproductive led from the stigmatization of usury and the Jews to the stigmatization of finance and, ultimately, in Marxism, the stigmatization of capitalism itself. Finally, the book traces how the traditional status of the Jews as a diasporic merchant minority both encouraged their economic success and made them particularly vulnerable to the ethnic nationalism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Providing a fresh look at an important but frequently misunderstood subject, Capitalism and the Jews will interest anyone who wants to understand the Jewish role in the development of capitalism, the role of capitalism in the modern fate of the Jews, or the ways in which the story of capitalism and the Jews has affected the history of Europe and beyond, from the medieval period to our own.

About this title

About the Author

Jerry Z. Muller is professor of history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. His previous books include Adam Smith in His Time and Ours (Princeton). His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New Republic, and the Times Literary Supplement, among other publications.

From the Back Cover

"This learned and suggestive little volume distills two centuries of wisdom concerning Jews and capitalism into four provocative essays. Drawing freely upon economic history, Jewish history, and the history of ideas, Jerry Muller moves deftly from European thinkers to Jewish traders and from Communists to nationalists. Along the way, he dispenses fresh insights, little known information, and much common sense concerning issues too often shrouded in myth, bigotry, ideology, and apologetics."--Jonathan D. Sarna, Brandeis University

"This book was hard to put down. It is a pleasure to read a work so provocative, so relevant, and so deeply informed."--Daniel Chirot, University of Washington

"This is a magisterial work. It traces the relation of Jews to capitalism from the early modern period to the contemporary world, placing it in the context of the development of modernity's political institutions and culture. This book will be indispensable reading for anyone interested in Jewish history, but also for those seeking to understand the overall drama of modernity."--Peter L. Berger, professor emeritus, Boston University

"This is a superb and enlightening book."--Andrei Markovits, University of Michigan

"Jerry Muller has written an indispensable book correcting myriad misperceptions about capitalism, the Jews, and the affinities between them. He treats troubling subjects such as the relation of Jews to Communism and the persistence of anti-Semitism with exceptional delicacy and common sense. If clarification could bring about correction, this compressed historical account would do much to 'repair the world.'"--Ruth R. Wisse, Harvard University

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 069115306X
• ISBN 13: 9780691153063
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280