Communications

ARTICLES

To the Editor:

K. E. Fleming uses Herge's Tintin to demonstrate that Western Europeans have such a uniquely careless attitude toward the Balkans that they see "scarcely any point in trying to distinguish between them" [/journals/ahr/105.4/ah001218.html]. Unfortunately, Fleming shows a rather similar attitude toward Tintin. First of all, Tintin is not a "boy detective" but a reporter. Second, Fleming's argument rests on the assertion that Syldavia in Le Sceptre d'Ottokar is the only imaginary country in the series, but this is not the case. Two books (L'Oreille Cassée and Les Picaros) are set in the nonexistent South American countries of San Theodoros and its neighbor Nuevo Rico. I also have been unable to find in any atlas the emirate of Khemed, the domains of the maharajah of Rawhajpoutalah, or the island of Pulaupulau Bompa. The creation of these imaginary places permitted the blend of fantasy and reality that is the trademark of the Tintin series.

     Fleming does not put Le Sceptre d'Ottokar in historical context even to the extent of giving the date of original publication (a courtesy extended to the more literary Agatha Christie). Le Sceptre d'Ottokar was serialized in 1938–1939: an important point for understanding its reflections of very real political events. Syldavia and particularly its neighbor Borduria show up again in L'Affaire Tournesol (1954). Here, Borduria is under the communist-type regime of Plekszy-Gladz: another indication that Hergé's Balkans are not without history.

     Finally, Fleming identifies the Tintin series as "adventures" in which the presence of "Balkan buffoons" is a particular insult to Eastern Europe. In fact, the world of Tintin is a comic one from first page to last, with idiocies and pratfalls that spare no one, including Tintin himself. Tintin doesn't need to go to other countries to find buffoons: he brings along with him some world-class clowns—to be precise, the two detectives Dupont and Dupond.

     Tintin is one of the great achievements of European popular culture: a series that started in 1929, ended in 1976, and is still a global bestseller. In it we find the whole gamut of European attitudes toward the rest of the world: degrading condescension, fascination with the exotic, genuine insight, and a human solidarity resting on both apolitical loyalty and continual comic indignity. Hergé himself evolved greatly over the years (one of the sources of his greatness). Americans have never really caught on to Tintin and the other classic bandes dessinées of postwar Europe: a failure in which disdain for mere "comic strips" plays its part. Perhaps this disdain helps explain the factual carelessness revealed here.

Lars T. Lih

Montreal, Quebec

K. E. Fleming does not wish to reply.
	The Editors

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

To the Editor:

Albert S. Lindemann's reply to my letter in the AHR (June 2000): 1083–84, which has lately come to my attention, hits an all-time low in character assassination. Not content with his earlier, unprovoked assault on my scholarly integrity, he now characterizes my work as "shallow and monotonous," recklessly partisan, driven by "twisted perspectives," fervently nationalistic (!), and "devoid of scruple." But it was not my work that was being reviewed in the AHR, nor am I responsible for the devastating critique of Lindemann by Judith Elkin in your October 1999 issue, which exposed the countless flaws in his recent book. Lindemann's reply to me and his other critics completely eschews any rational argument. Instead, he relies on a relentlessly self-publicizing parade of clips from approving reviewers while treating those who dissent from his views to fierce ad hominem attacks that should be beyond the pale of scholarly discourse. I will not dignify this form of intellectual terrorism with a detailed reply. But it is sad to see the AHR providing a platform to Lindemann to sling mud at reputable scholars in ways that bring the historical profession into ill repute.

Robert S. Wistrich

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

To the Editor:

Albert S. Lindemann's reply to my letter (AHR 105 [December 2000]: 1871–72) is deceitful. And in two ways.

     First, this letter implies that our exchange belongs to a longstanding feud between us. In plain truth, I wrote to protest a specific episode—Lindemann's criticism of Robert S. Wistrich (AHR 105 [June 2000]: 1083–84) . . . My motive was to defend a scholar I deeply admire. Lindemann had written that Wistrich "has few if any defenders of stature . . . while cranks and zealots have rushed to embrace him" (p. 1084). This was not only unfair, it was false. I could have named names, but I preferred not to hide behind other scholars' gowns. I wanted to show that at least one writer was willing to risk being characterized as a crank or zealot for speaking out in defense of Wistrich . . . But the assault on me would be more convincing if it were isolated to me. Sadly, Lindemann pursues exactly the same strategy against Wistrich.

     And this is the second deceit. "My criticisms of Wistrich," Lindemann wrote, "have mostly to do with his Commentary review of my book" (p. 1872). The truth is otherwise. Lindemann's criticism was not aimed at a mere book review but at Wistrich's scholarship on anti-Semitism—almost the whole of his life's work! Unable to answer my protest that this sweeping and indiscriminate assault on Wistrich's reputation is grounded neither in solid textual analysis nor responsible argument, Lindemann tries now to distract readers . . . The truth is that Lindemann seeks to burke any criticism by seeking to discredit his critics.

     Let us suppose everything Lindemann says about me is true. I have produced no historical work. (In fact, my book The Elephants Teach is a contribution to the history of education.) I am a "loose cannon," whatever that means. (If its opposite is a cannon fastened in place and firing on command—that is, a scholar who is dependent on the opinion of others and utterly predictable—then one could do worse than to be a "loose cannon.") I have called him an "enemy of Israel" and an "anti-Semitic polemicist." (I cannot find these phrases in my writing.) Even so, it is I, not he, who "twists and misuses" texts and ignores "crucial qualifier[s]." (Although I may have summarized his views in one place, I have quoted him fully and accurately in another and have discussed his "qualifiers" at length in print.) There are a "diminishing number" of outlets for my attacks on him. (Lindemann may want to avoid American Literary History, where in a forthcoming essay I associate his work with the ideology of liberal anti-Judaism.) My attacks have been "venomous if erratic." (In fact, my criticisms of his work have been painstakingly documented and closely reasoned, which is why—anticipating his ad hominem reply—I directed readers to the full transcript of our debates at my web site . . . Whatever I have said publicly about Lindemann has been the demonstrable conclusion to a careful argument.)

     Even if everything Lindemann says about me is true, it is entirely irrelevant. A loose cannon may score a direct hit now and then. Yet Lindemann does not bother to address, let alone answer, a single one of my arguments. He does not defend himself, for example, against my charge that he abuses Lucy S. Dawidowicz without building a scholarly case against her—or even quoting her! This is a matter of some urgency, since Lindemann has begun to be cited by other writers who would also like to dismiss Dawidowicz as a mere Jewish partisan. To point out that Lindemann has called into discredit the work of a great historian without even citing it is not an "attack" on him, it is a service to the historical profession. My central argument was that Lindemann is abusive with some regularity. "Rather than examining their work in any detail," I wrote, "he prefers to stigmatize his adversaries." How does he respond to this criticism? He tries to stigmatize his critic. Lindemann's reply has the unintended and welcome effect of proving my case against him.

D. G. Myers

Texas A&M University

Albert S. Lindemann replies:

Much of what is in the letters from Robert Wistrich and D. G. Myers goes over issues that I have addressed in several previous letters. As I commented in one of them, I can't imagine that many readers continue to be interested in these exchanges or indeed will be able to follow their convoluted history. Still, I cannot let this stream of misinformation and bluster pass unchallenged.

     Reading Robert Wistrich's most recent blast, I must again shake my head in astonishment; for the author of one of the most abusive reviews in recent memory to charge me with mud-throwing and "intellectual terrorism"—and further for him to lament that he has been the object of an "unprovoked assault"—must give rise to serious questions about this man's grip on reality. The very tone of his letter provides further evidence of his prickly self-importance and inability to face the consequences of his own actions, or even understand them.

     Wistrich cannot seem to get it into his head that he has written in ways that raise serious doubts about his scholarly integrity. To begin with, as I and others have already noted, for a reviewer to write such a hostile review of a book in which the reviewer's own work is criticized and to make absolutely no reference to that criticism represents a breach of scholarly ethics.

     But there is much more, and I am more than happy to be given the opportunity to provide further examples of the "solid textual analysis . . . [and] responsible argument" that D. G. Myers calls for. I am confident that readers will recognize the hollowness of Wistrich's charge that my previous letter "completely eschews any rational argument."

     In that Commentary review (February 1998), Wistrich wrote that "according to Lindemann [my italics], Romania's reputation as a land of narrow-minded backwardness was undeserved; he cites one source testifying that Romanians were 'the most tolerant of all Christian peoples.'" As I and a number of scholars pointed out in subsequent letters to Commentary, this was a serious misrepresentation of what I had written, since I made quite clear that I did not approve of that source. My opening words to the section on Romania are as follows: "Nowhere else did hatred of the Jews become so prominently a part of national identity or one that so obsessed the intellectual classes" (Esau's Tears, 307).

     One might have expected a man of integrity to recognize that his partisan passions had gotten the best of him and apologize for making charges that were so patently untrue. Instead, in his reply (Commentary [April 1998]: 10–18), Wistrich spun himself into a web of further falsehood. He claimed that he "did not attribute to him [Lindemann] the absurd remark of which he complains." But he most certainly did attribute that remark to me (see above: "according to Lindemann"). Then he moved on, in his reply, completely avoiding the matter. This is partly why I commented that Wistrich is "incapable of recognizing, even to the slightest degree, injustice on his side" [AHR 105 (June 2000): 1084].

     The rest of Wistrich's long and abusive reply in Commentary is replete with errors and stonewalling. He charged that that my book is "deafeningly silent" about Christian prejudice against Jews. But far from ignoring it, I devote many pages to it. My preface covers it in a general way, and chapter after chapter returns to it. The index, under "Christian anti-Semitism," "Catholic Church," "religion," lists scores of discussions of the issue.

     Wistrich further wrote in his reply that I "startlingly" assert in my book "that before the mid-1930s Hitler was a 'moderate' on the 'Jewish question.'" The thing that is startling here is the extent of his readiness brazenly to misrepresent what I wrote. From the opening chapters of Esau's Tears, I make clear my position that Hitler was the most fanatical of the modern anti-Semites. In the section dealing with Nazism, I wrote, "One may certainly find a monstrous hatred in certain elements of the German population, and most pertinently in Hitler himself." "Even the 'moderate' solutions that Hitler's henchmen contemplated [e.g., expulsion] were madly utopian, and morally outrageous." I do note, as have many scholars, that Hitler tried to appear a moderate on the Jewish question as on many others, but I emphasize strongly the radicalism of his anti-Semitism and that ultimate responsibility for the Final Solution must be laid at his doorstep.

     I have little doubt that Wistrich understands that distinction but consciously chose to misrepresent what I wrote. My description, then, of Wistrich as "devoid of scruple when lashing out at those he perceives as enemies," far from being a "fierce ad hominem attack," is based on much concrete evidence. I could fill pages with further examples. Similarly, his charge that my previous letter to the AHR "completely eschews any rational argument" has as much validity to it as his whoppers that I praise the Romanians, ignore Christian Jew-hatred, or describe Hitler as a moderate.

     As far as my description of his work dealing with anti-Semitism as "blind to nuance and moral complexity, shallow and monotonous in interpretation" is concerned, I think any careful and discriminating reader of The Longest Hatred will recognize, as have a number of reviewers, the aptness of those terms. So, I am sure, will most of those who have read Commentary in the past quarter-century recognize the aptness of the terms "neo-conservative polemic and fervent nationalistic/ethnic partisanship."

     In part, what is at issue is a fundamental difference in interpreting modern anti-Semitism. I consider it similar in important ways to other kinds of ethnic, religious, and economic conflicts, although I stress that irrational fantasies typically contort and intensify those conflicts. Wistrich maintains that anti-Semitism is to be understood as a wildly irrational phenomenon, one without significant connections to such kinds of conflict. He seems to feel that his primary job as a historian is to describe the irrationalities in detail and say relatively little about the rest. Why such differences in interpretive perspective could not be discussed in a reasonable tone, without the barrage of ugly insults and reckless falsehoods in the Commentary review and replies to it still remains something of a mystery to me, although my best guess is that Wistrich's emotional attachment to black-and-white categorizations has made it difficult for him to entertain as worthy of consideration any of the nuances I explored in the Romanian situation—or indeed the complexities of anti-Semitism in most other countries.

     I would certainly have much preferred to discuss these differences of perception, which are hardly new to the field, in a calm and civil fashion. I hasten to add that my initial criticism of Wistrich and Dawidowicz in Esau's Tears was measured, in both cases recognizing their many merits and accomplishments. I referred to the "dubious tenor and simplistic nature" of the background chapters of Dawidowicz's War against the Jews, an evaluation that few serious scholars today would contest. Of Wistrich, I wrote that his defects were similar to those of Dawidowicz, "prominent among them a tendency to colorful and indignant narrative, accompanied by weak, sometimes tendentious analysis." A radical escalation in language came with Wistrich's review in Commentary. Compare the adjectives I used above to those used in Wistrich's review: "profoundly biased and ignominious," "deeply pernicious," "little better than that of the anti-Semites whose arguments he echoes." Obviously, once I had been attacked in such a false and unprincipled manner in the review and then in the reply in Commentary, my own estimation of Wistrich's scholarly integrity plummeted.

     That D. G. Myers so admires Wistrich does not surprise me. The two have much in common . . . Typically, Myers's own words, in this most recent letter, are his own worst enemy (and, again, he tends to accuse others of those very things of which he is most guilty, such as my being "deceitful"). He seems to think that he can snip out crucial qualifying words and phrases of mine in one instance, altering my meaning (mere "summarizing" in his mind), so long as he quotes the full text elsewhere . . . Similarly, when I noted that he has published nothing in the field of the history of anti-Semitism, and is not a historian, I should have mentioned, he seems to think, a future article of his. As for the terms, "enemy of Israel" and "anti-Semitic polemicist," any long-time subscriber to H-Antisemitism, and, of course, its moderators, can, I am sure, refresh his memory—although they, like so many others who have had to deal with D. G. Myers, including the moderators of H-Holocaust, have ruefully vowed to have as little to do with him as possible in the future. That Myers now presents himself as a valiant defender of Wistrich is not, to put it mildly, likely to remedy that scholar's by now badly tarnished reputation.

Albert S. Lindemann

University of California, Santa Barbara

[These letters conclude this series of exchanges. No further letters will be published. The Editors]

To the Editor:

In reviewing my book Jerusalem in America's Foreign Policy, 1947–1997 (AHR 105 [December 2000]: 1767–68), Peter L. Hahn criticizes the book for resembling "less a thorough study of U.S. diplomacy and more a legal brief arguing a case for a particular U.S. policy toward Jerusalem." The book "displays a pervasive, if not excessive, legalism . . . [and] critiques U.S. policy . . . for incongruity with somewhat arcane legal codes." Moreover, the study leaves untouched "available archival materials."

     It is quite clear that Hahn is not a legal scholar and certainly not a scholar of international law. I therefore cannot take issue with him for his lack of appreciation of the entire focus of the book, namely, a legal analysis of the status of Jerusalem as perceived by American policymakers during the course of half a century. For the same reason, I cannot fault him for failing to appreciate critical documentation on the legal issue derived from archival sources in Washington, London, and Jerusalem. The international legal character of the study could be readily discerned from the fact that it bears the imprint of Kluwer Law International (the Hague), the world's foremost publisher of works on international law. Perhaps my real regret is that the book review editor, in selecting a reviewer, did not take note of the nature of the book and select someone who is also proficient in international law.

Shlomo Slonim

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Peter L. Hahn does not wish to reply.
	The Editors

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