Communications

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

To the Editor:

Having just read Albert S. Lindemann's deeply misleading letter in the October 1999 issue of the AHR [/journals/ahr/104.4/ah001448.html], I would like to point out that he is totally off the mark in trying to attribute my negative review of his book Esau's Tears to some kind of personal resentment. My critique appeared over eighteen months ago in Commentary when Lindemann was known to me only through his earlier work The Jew Accused, where he referred to three books of mine without any hint of disagreement. Moreover, even in Esau's Tears, there are extensive citations of my work throughout—none of them negative—with the exception of the single passing (critical) reference to my book Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred. It is thoroughly disingenuous of Lindemann to pretend that this was the reason for my dismay at his book. Apparently, it has not occurred to Lindemann that, given the low-level scholarship in his recent book, any praise from him could only be profoundly embarrassing, while to be singled out for his opprobrium might almost be considered a badge of integrity. Moreover, following his own logic, before he quoted Richard Levy so favorably on his behalf in his response he should have stated that he had given Levy, in effect, a rave review in Esau's Tears (xi, n.4).

     Lindemann quotes at length from the letters section of Commentary (April 1998), but once again he is highly selective, omitting to mention that I gave a very detailed point-by-point rebuttal of every ad hominem accusation that he, Norman Ravitch, and Levy made against me while extending my substantive arguments against his book. He also ignores David G. Myers's very instructive letter exposing Lindemann's ignorance of and bias against Judaism as well as his highly deceptive style of insinuation. Nor does he tell readers that Myers praised my review for telling the truth "about a bad and even a dangerous book."

     It was therefore gratifying to read Judith Elkin's devastating critique of Lindemann in the same October issue of the AHR, a model review in its honesty and incisiveness [1370–71]. When one puts her perceptive comments alongside Lindemann's absurdly posturing comparisons of his own work with Hannah Arendt and Raul Hilberg and the narcissistic parading of testimonies in his favor (in place of argument), the contrast is indeed invidious. Similarly, the comments by Eunice Pollack and Stephen Norwood hit the nail on the head [1448]. That a self-confessed Holocaust "revisionist" like Ernst Zundel enthusiastically endorses Lindemann's book was only to be expected. Whatever Lindemann's subjective motives—and I am willing to grant that he may be self-deluded enough to think of himself as a "philosemite"—his book is grist to the mill of all the Zundels in this world. That is exactly why I called his book pernicious.

Robert S. Wistrich

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Albert S. Lindemann replies:

I did not assert that my criticisms were the reason that Robert Wistrich wrote such an extravagantly negative and dishonest review; I merely observed that those criticisms were among various considerations that "shed light" on the review, that they were not mentioned in it, and that he had a responsibility as a reviewer to do so. In the above letter, Wistrich attempts to obscure the crucial fact that my criticism occurs in the opening paragraphs of Esau's Tears and, more to the point, that the criticism of his book Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred is offered to indicate a kind of approach to the study of anti-Semitism that I think seriously inadequate—a key reason for writing my book and not just a "single passing" and inconsequential reference.

     Wistrich is a prolific writer who has unquestionably done valuable research, but in dealing with the issue of anti-Semitism, his emotions get the best of him. He comes across as blind to nuance and moral complexity, shallow and monotonous in interpretation, and devoid of scruple in lashing out at those he defines as enemies. Much of his writing is characterized by neo-conservative polemic and a fervent nationalistic/ethnic partisanship. Were he a politician or an employee of a lobbying organization, his lack of restraint might be less troubling, but he holds a chair at a university, and for that reason is to be held to higher standards of balance and fair play.

     As far as my being "self-deluded" is concerned, it was not I but Steven Beller, a fine scholar writing in a distinguished journal, who made the remark about philo-Semitism. ("It is abundantly clear . . . that [Lindemann's] sympathies in a larger sense lie fairly and squarely with the Jews"; TLS.) A large number of other scholars have observed that my efforts at scholarly balance are mixed with sympathy for the dilemmas of the Jewish condition: "It is clear that the author has enormous sympathy for the Jewish people and their history" (Robert C. Grogin, CJH). "Most open-minded readers . . . will find Esau's Tears a well-balanced and very readable history of antisemitism prior to the Holocaust" (Bruce F. Pauley, Journal of Modern History). "[Lindemann] evaluates the position of Jews . . . with originality and unwavering common sense . . . Esau's Tears is chock-full of . . . well-balanced interpretations" (Susan Zuccotti, The Nation). A number of scholarly reviewers have explicitly commented on the unfairness of Wistrich's review, ranging from Nicholas Wachsmann ("[Wistrich's] criticism is certainly overstated," in the JCH) to William Rubinstein ("[Lindemann] received the full treatment of hysterical abuse in Commentary," in History Today). Even Judith Elkin, in the April 2000 issue of the AHR, distanced herself from Wistrich's charges: "[Lindemann] expresses genuine compassion for Jewish victims of bigotry in many places throughout the book" (679).

     If "hysterical abuse" seems overstated to some readers, I urge them to look up the review in Commentary and decide for themselves if it can be termed either accurate or fair-minded. Similarly, they might inquire into whether Wistrich in fact offered a "detailed, point-by-point rebuttal" of the ensuing letters critical of his review (rather than simply ignoring the points he could not answer and obfuscating on many others). I think most readers will conclude that in this case Wistrich reveals himself as a reckless partisan, immune to self-doubt, and incapable of recognizing, even to the slightest degree, injustice on his side. It says something about his curiously twisted perspectives that in the above letter he dismisses the large number of reviews favorable to Esau's Tears that I cite as "narcissistic," while he characterizes my references to the criticisms directed at Arendt and Hilberg (where the point was simply that even such major figures have been crudely misrepresented and defamed) as "absurd posturing."

     I further urge any readers who have not tired of this exchange (and I don't imagine there are many) to inquire into the scholarly accomplishments in this field—to say nothing of reputation for balance and fairness—of my other detractors. And then compare the scholarly accomplishments and general reputation of the some twenty reviewers who have disagreed, implicitly or explicitly, with Wistrich as to the merits of Esau's Tears. I think it will be obvious that he has few if any defenders of stature on this matter, while cranks and zealots have rushed to embrace him. In that regard, it is also obvious that if anyone is providing grist for the mills of the anti-Semites, it is Wistrich and his cohort, about whom the word "pernicious" is indeed appropriate because of their efforts, by shrill and unprincipled attacks, to obstruct open discussions of anti-Semitism.

     Let me end by noting that, in spite of Wistrich's words about how "appalling" it is that Cambridge University Press has published my "ignominious" book, the editors have mysteriously decided to issue a paperback edition, to appear this fall. The editors at Longman, too, seem somehow unimpressed by these dire warnings and have published [April 2000] my new book Anti-Semitism before the Holocaust in their Seminars in European History series. "Relevant full citations are to be found at www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/lindeman/lindemann.html."

Albert S. Lindemann

University of California, Santa Barbara

To the Editor:

I thank John Henry Schlegel for his characterization of my book, Community Denied: The Wrong Turn of Pragmatic Liberalism, as a "tragic western" [AHR 105 (February 2000): 237]. His white-hat, black-hat trope accurately, though somewhat broadly, captures my argument. For I do regard the eclipse of Charles Sanders Peirce's pragmatism by that of William James and John Dewey as a tragedy for early twentieth-century political and social theory.

     Having called attention to my narrative skill in giving a book about rarefied social theory the dramatic excitement of a shoot-em-up, Schlegel has stopped there. It would take a far more ungrateful author than I to suggest that the reviewer has done too little. The job of engaging the book's argument, as opposed to merely characterizing it, can be undertaken by those whom he has so artfully stirred to read it.

James Hoopes

State University of New York at Buffalo

John H. Schlegel does not wish to reply.

The Editors