Paul Hanebrink is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. He is the author of In Defense of Christian Hungary: Religion, Nationalism, and Antisemitism, 1890–1944.
A timely reminder of the intellectual tradition deployed by
Republican politicians in the U.S. when they join the loose
coalition of conspiracy theorists across the Atlantic gleefully
demonizing George Soros. It is both salutary and depressing to be
reminded of how enduring the trope of an exploitative global Jewish
conspiracy against pure, humble and selfless nationalists really
is…A century after the end of the first world war, we have, it
seems, learned very little.
*Financial Times*
One of the great merits of Paul Hanebrink’s A Specter Haunting
Europe is its demonstration of how Europe’s most pervasive and
powerful twentieth-century manifestation of anti-Semitic
thought—the myth of Judeo-Bolshevism—emerged before the rise of
National Socialism and has continued to have a curious life long
after the Holocaust and the defeat of Nazi Germany.
*New York Review of Books*
Magisterial…Hanebrink’s book covers this dark history with insight
and skill. He has the linguistic ability to bring Eastern Europe
fully into the narrative, and the vision to include American and
Western European debates, too. The end result is a major
intervention into our understanding of 20th-century Europe and the
lessons we ought to take away from its history.
*The Nation*
Outstanding…Makes clear that Judeo-Bolshevism was far from an
afterthought; it was a—perhaps the—central catalyst in driving
forward the Nazi genocidal project…The most exhaustive account to
date of the Nazi obsession with Judeo-Bolshevism, but also of the
other sites and eras in Europe in which the myth of
Judeo-Bolshevism flourished.
*Los Angeles Review of Books*
This masterful interpretation of the origins and trajectory of the
Judeo-Bolshevik myth is far more than a new classic in the canon of
the writing of twentieth-century history. With the politics of
exclusion and Islamophobia now sweeping Europe, alongside the
election of Donald Trump in the United States, Paul Hanebrink’s
reconstruction of the conspiratorial imagination that led shadowy
others to be blamed—and worse—is an indispensable warning for our
own time.
*Samuel Moyn, author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal
World*
Hanebrink follows the myth’s twisted course from its European
origins in the immediate aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution,
through the jaundiced politics of the interwar period, to its
devastating culmination in Nazi Germany…He argues that it survives
today in the resurgent right-wing nationalism cropping up in many
Western countries. From the start, the fantasy held that an alien
element—the Jews—aimed to subvert the cultural values and national
identities of Western societies. As Hanebrink points out, this
theme is echoed in modern anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. The
writers, politicians, and shills whose poisonous ideas he exhumes
have many contemporary admirers.
*Foreign Affairs*
Thoughtful and informative…In addition to examining the origins and
influence of the Judeo-Bolshevik myth in the period from 1917 to
1945, Hanebrink attempts to show that it is still an important
element in anti-Semitism, both in Europe and beyond…While
Judeo-Bolshevism may have lost its resonance, Paul Hanebrink is
right to insist that its history still matters, both as a key to
understanding the tragic fate of Europe’s Jews in the first half of
the twentieth century and as a reminder of how myths can open the
way to political and moral catastrophe.
*Commonweal*
A masterful attempt to dissect the origins and the development of
the idea of Judeo-Bolshevism in different cultural and political
settings across twentieth-century Europe, and to explain why and
how this canard came to shape the intentions of the leaders of so
many parties and organizations, and dominate the minds of
intellectuals as well as of average players in the Age of Extremes…
Hanebrink’s close study of the way in which Nazism refashioned
Judeo-Bolshevism is magisterial in the detailed assessment of how
different European countries and organizations responded to
Germany’s acclaimed mission to lead Europe against the common
enemy… [A] tour de force… [A] definitive history of
Judeo-Bolshevism.
*Marginalia*
As Paul Hanebrink demonstrates in this masterly account, the myth
of Judaeo-Bolshevism rose on a tide of hysteria whipped up by the
chaos in central Europe that marked the end of the Great War…This
in turn fed easily into a vicious racist rhetoric that
characterized much of the discourse of the political right in
Europe between the two world wars and which was of course a
cornerstone of the Nazi enterprise.
*Times Higher Education*
An edifying new book that serves as a valuable addition to the
corpus of scholarship on the long history of antisemitism.
*Jerusalem Post*
Remarkably lucid and disturbingly relevant…An explicit response to
the continued use of Judeo-Bolshevism among far-right movements…The
scope of Hanebrink’s achievement here should not be
underestimated.
*Russian Review*
During World War II the phantom idea of Judeo-Bolshevism fueled
genocides that killed millions of Jews and East Europeans, but, as
Paul Hanebrink tells us, we hear its echoes anytime politicians
stir fears about outsiders threatening civilization—whether they
call it European, Western, or Christian. Hanebrink’s tour de force
is rare in its brilliance and originality, but also urgent in its
message for our time.
*John Connelly, author of From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution
in Catholic Teaching on the Jews, 1933–1965*
Hanebrink has written a remarkable study…[He] successfully blends
the political history of twentieth-century Eastern Europe—with
Germany figuring prominently in his narrative—with an originally
conceived intellectual history of the Judeo-Bolshevik myth and
various echoes that it spawned in public discourse…His book is too
good and too rich to be summarized. It should be read.
*American Historical Review*
Tremendous…Could not be more timely…These are dangerous times and
we need to know as much about the history and politics of the
far-right as we can. Hanebrink’s book is a challenging and
important contribution helping to develop that understanding.
*Socialist Review*
Superb…Argues cogently that the Judeo-Bolshevism peril was
constructed from ‘the raw materials of anti-Judaism, recycled and
rearranged to meet new requirements.’
*Times of Israel*
A tour de force…This is a first-rate, innovative study not only of
a crucial chapter in European history, but also of vicious forces
still at play in the present.
*Journal of Modern History*
[An] absorbing work.
*Martyrdom & Resistance*
[A] historical tour de force…A Specter Haunting Europe is a
masterful work and essential reading for both scholars and students
of modern European history, antisemitism, and Jewish Studies.
*Religious Studies Review*
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