A landmark work. An extraordinary book: analytically acute, lyrical, witty, and disturbing all at once. A blend of political and cultural history at its best, it is a splendid work, beautifully written. A true accomplishment by a master historian. Gross, author of Neighbors. Yuri Slezkine's passionate and brilliant tour de force not only challenges received wisdom about Russian and Soviet Jews, but just as provocatively overturns the uniqueness that many ascribe to Jewish history altogether.
The Jewish Century is a work sure to spark heated debate not only about the Jews, but also about what it means to be modern. Slezkine's account is subtle, beautifully written, and very moving; it combines humor, irony, and understated passion. One wants to argue with the author on many pages of the manuscript, but it is such a powerful, sweeping statement that it must be left whole and intact, as a central position in future arguments on modernity, the twentieth century, and the history of the Jews.
Due to global supply chain issues, book orders are currently taking days or longer to be delivered. They traditionally belonged to a social and anthropological category known as "service nomads," an outsider group specializing in the delivery of goods and services. Their role, Slezkine argues, was part of a broader division of human labor between what he calls Mercurians-entrepreneurial minorities--and Apollonians--food-producing majorities. Since the dawning of the Modern Age, Mercurians have taken center stage.
In fact, Slezkine argues, modernity is all about Apollonians becoming Mercurians--urban, mobile, literate, articulate, intellectually intricate, physically fastidious, and occupationally flexible.
Since no group has been more adept at Mercurianism than the Jews, he contends, these exemplary ancients are now model moderns. But Slezkine has as much to say about the many faces of modernity--nationalism, socialism, capitalism, and liberalism--as he does about Jewry. Marxism and Freudianism, for example, sprang largely from the Jewish predicament, Slezkine notes, and both Soviet Bolshevism and American liberalism were affected in fundamental ways by the Jewish exodus from the Pale of Settlement.
Rich in its insight, sweeping in its chronology, and fearless in its analysis, this sure-to-be-controversial work is an important contribution not only to Jewish and Russian history but to the history of Europe and America as well. Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide.
Forged from a partnership between a university press and a library, Project MUSE is a trusted part of the academic and scholarly community it serves. Slezkine argues that the Jews were, in effect, among the worlds first free agents. They traditionally belonged to a social and anthropological category known as «service nomads,» an outsider group specializing in the delivery of goods and services. Their role, Slezkine argues, was part of a broader division of human labor between what he calls Mercurians-entrepreneurial minorities--and Apollonians--food-producing majorities.
Since the dawning of the Modern Age, Mercurians have taken center stage. In fact, Slezkine argues, modernity is all about Apollonians becoming Mercurians--urban, mobile, literate, articulate, intellectually intricate, physically fastidious, and occupationally flexible.
Since no group has been more adept at Mercurianism than the Jews, he contends, these exemplary ancients are now model moderns. But Slezkine has as much to say about the many faces of modernity--nationalism, socialism, capitalism, and liberalism--as he does about Jewry.
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