The Paranoid Apocalypse: A Hundred-Year Retrospective on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Steven T. Katz

Published by New York University Press 2011

The Paranoid Apocalypse

A Hundred-Year Retrospective on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Steven T. Katz
Edited by: Richard Landes

Volume 3 in the series Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies Series

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814749456.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

An in-depth analysis of an anti-semitic conspiracy theory, from its origins in the 20th century to its resurgence today

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, first published in Russia around 1905, claimed to be the captured secret protocols from the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897 describing a plan by the Jewish people to achieve global domination. While the document has been proven to be fake, much of it plagiarized from satirical anti-Semitic texts, it had a major impact throughout Europe during the first half of the 20th century, particularly in Germany. After World War II, the text was further denounced. Anyone who referred to it as a genuine document was seen as an ignorant hate-monger.

Yet there is abundant evidence that The Protocols is resurfacing in many places. The Paranoid Apocalypse re-examines the text’s popularity, investigating why it has persisted, as well as larger questions about the success of conspiracy theories even in the face of claims that they are blatantly counterfactual and irrational. It considers the medieval pre-history of The Protocols, the conditions of its success in the era of early twentieth-century secular modernity, and its post-Holocaust avatars, from the Muslim world to Walmart and Left-wing anti-American radicalism. Contributors argue that the key to The Protocols’ longevity is an apocalyptic paranoia that lays the groundwork not only for the myth’s popularity, but for its implementation as a vehicle for genocide and other brutal acts.

Author / Editor information

Katz Steven T. :

Steven T. Katz is Slater Professor of Jewish and Holocaust Studies and former Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University. His many publications include The Holocaust in Historical Context.Landes Richard :

Richard A. Landes is Professor at Boston University and Director and Co-Founder of their Center for Millennial Studies. His publications include The Apocalyptic Year 1000: Studies in the Mutation of European Culture.

Reviews

Jeffrey Herf,author of The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propagandad During World War II and the Holocaust:
A set of thoughtful essays that examine the origins and absurd persistence of this influential forgery, informative assessments of the anti-Semitic conspiratorial imagination in Europe, Japan, the United States and in the Middle East, and lively debates about the way Western and Jewish intellectuals have responded to the recent forms in which the old hatred has found expression.

Charles Asher Small,Former Executive Director of the Yale Intiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism:
A timely and important volume that ought to be essential reading for students and scholars alike. The Shoah did not begin with concentration camps and trains. It began with words and ideas. The lies of the Protocols played a key role in marginalizing and dehumanizing European Jewry, paving the way for their brutal extermination. Remarkably, in the contemporary context, the Protocols are once again becoming widely used as effective propaganda, especially throughout much of the Middle East. . . . This text provides an interdisciplinary, high calibre, scholarly analysis of a subject matter that is under-studied and of profound importance.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction: The Protocols at the Dawn of the 21st Century Richard Landes and Steven T. Katz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I Conceptual Prelude: On Paranoid Politics and Apocalyptic Violence
2 The Melian Dialogue, the Protocols, and the Paranoid Imperative Richard Landes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
3 The Apocalyptic Other: On Paranoia and Violence Charles B. Strozier Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	34
Part II Medieval Prologue: Cosmic Christian Anxiety and Global Modern Paranoia
4 The Devil’s Hoofs: The Medieval Roots of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion Jeffrey R. Woolf Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
5 Thomas of Monmouth and the Protocols of the Sages of Narbonne Johannes Heil Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	56
Part III The Early Years: The Apocalyptic Matrix of Genesis and Launch
6 “The Antichrist as an Imminent Political Possibility” Sergei Nilus and the Apocalyptical Reading of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion Michael Hagemeister Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
7 Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Thoughts on the French Connection Jeffrey Mehlman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	92
8 “Jewish World Conspiracy” and the Question of Secular Religions: An Interpretative Perspective Paul Zawadzki Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
9 The Turning Point: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Eschatological War between Aryans and Jew David Redles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	112
Part IV Post-Holocaust Protocols: Non-Western Variations
10 The Protocols in Japan David G. Goodman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
11 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion An Authentic Document in Palestinian Authority Ideology Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	152
Part V Protocols at the Turn of the Millennium The Return of the Repressed
12 Anti-Semitism from Outer Space: The Protocols in the UFO Subculture Michael Barkun Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
13 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on the Contemporary American Scene: Historical Artifact or Current Threat? Deborah Lipstadt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
14 Protocols to the Left, Protocols to the Right Conspiracism in American Political Discourse at the Turn of the Second Millennium Chip Berlet Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
Part VI Quo Vadis? How to Respond to the Return of the Protocols
15 Conspiracy Then and Now History, Politics, and the Anti-Semitic Imagination Stephen Eric Bronner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
16 Jewish Self-Criticism, Progressive Moral Schadenfreude, and the Suicide of Reason: Reflections on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the “Postmodern” Era Richard Landes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
About the Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	254

Language: English
Publisher: New York University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;

eBook

Published: December 12, 2011
ISBN: 9780814749456