A Lie and a Libel: The History of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion - Hardcover

Segel, Binjamin W.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803242433 ISBN 13: 9780803242432

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 1995

Synopsis

A strange and repugnant mystery of the twentieth century is the durability of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a clumsy forgery purporting to be evidence of the supposed Jewish plot to rule the world. Though it has been exposed as a forgery, some apprentice brownshirt is always rediscovering it, the latest in a line of gullibility that includes, most famously, Henry Ford. Recently it has been translated into Japanese and circulates once again with renewed virulence in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

 

In 1924 in Germany the Jewish author and journalist Binjamin Segel wrote a major historical exposé of the fraud and later edited his work into a shorter form, published as Welt-Krieg, Welt-Revolution, Welf-Verschwörung, Welt-Oberregierung (Berlin 1926). Translator Richard S. Levy, a specialist on the history of anti-semitism, provides an extensive introduction on the circumstances of Segel's work and the story of the Protocols up to the 1990s, including an explanation of its continuing psychological appeal and political function.

About this title

About the Author

Richard S. Levy is an associate professor of history at the University of Illinois–Chicago. He is the editor of Antisemitism in the Modern World: An Anthology of Texts.

Reviews

Created in Paris at the turn of the century under the supervision of the Russian secret police, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a clumsy forgery purporting to be evidence of a Jewish plot to take over the world and reduce non-Jews to slavery. The plot was adopted as official ideology by Hitler's regime and disseminated throughout the United States by industrialist Henry Ford; it circulates today with renewed virulence in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Binjamin Segel published a massive expose of the Protocols in 1926 in Germany. In about 100 pages of selected translation and 50 pages of his own criticism, editor Levy (history, Univ. of Illinois-Chicago) here examines two distinct avenues?the conspiratorial and the anti-Semitic?through which the Protocols have been able to wield political influence over frightened and angry people. "Although the prospect of imminent Jewish triumph might be horrifying, knowledge of the conspiracy, as Hitler promised in Mein Kampf, would render it conquerable." An essential addition for all Judaic studies and history collections.?Marcie Zwaik, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0803242433
• ISBN 13: 9780803242432
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 148
• Editor: Levy Richard S.