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1st Printing. 153 pages. Published in 1948. Book-length essay on subject. One of the greatest books of the 20th century. One of the most valuable writings - by an insightful non-Jew - on Jewishness and by extension, ethnic identity, white nationalism, and racism. The first appearance of the title in English and in the United States. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run by a small independent press, Schocken Books, as a hardcover original only. There is no ISBN. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Jean-Paul Sartre's "Anti-Semite And Jew". Its French title, "Reflexions sur la question Juive", literally translates as "Reflections On The Jewish Question". The English title is pithier as it captures Sartre's in-depth analysis better: He forces the Self (the Western Anti-Semite) to confront his unassimilable Other (The Jew), to look him in the eye. Anti-Semitism is universal, deeply ingrained, and "unconscious". Inescapably, this helps explain why otherwise "enlightened" progressives and liberals in the West are nevertheless ferociously anti-Semitic: They believe, deep down and like everyone else does, that the Jew is, and will always be, pure evil. The only moral way to deal with evil is to confront, defeat, and destroy it. Anti-Semitism is not blind prejudice, but a "cause", motivated by morality, by "doing the right thing"; we, justifiably so, hate what we believe to be evil. Therefore The Jew, being pure evil - Christ-killer, money-grubber, power-grabber, Zionist colonialist, Palestinian victimizer/genocidal oppressor; the list of Jewish crimes is very long and keeps growing - must be annihilated once and for all. "A merciless polemic, savagely epigrammatic and masterfully condensed. A genuine contribution to contemporary thought, it will be read and re-read for years to come" (Harvey Swados). There is no question that Sartre was a genius and a great writer, and as such, he remains an iconic intellectual/philosopher/thinker. That he got many, many things wrong - it does matter that a thinker gets it right, not simply that he is a powerful and original thinker, which Sartre was - makes "Anti-Semite And Jew" practically an outlier. In this crystal-clear, succinct Essay, he gets it right. His book is an admirable feat of moral and intellectual poise that surpasses E. M. Cioran ("A People of Solitaries"), on the one hand, and Edward Said, the greatest Palestinian writer/thinker of the 20th century, on the other. An absolute "must-have" title for Jean-Paul Sartre collectors. This title is a great book. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing (American) still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. It is, quite simply, the nicest copy we have ever seen of a book published more than seventy-five years ago, in 1948, on dirt-cheap, post-war paper. Please note: Copies available online have very serious flaws or are in multiple subsequent printings. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. One of the greatest writer/thinkers of the 20th century. A fine copy.
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