JOURNALfor the STUDYof ANTISEMITISM

Time Well Spent
Albert S. Lindemann and Richard S. Levy, eds.,
Antisemitism: A History
(Oxford University Press, 2010), 288 pp., $31.95
Leon Rosenberg*
According to the editors of this collection, Albert S. Lindemann, professor
of history emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara, and
Richard S. Levy, professor of history, University of Illinois, Chicago, the
“central goal of this volume is to offer a reasonable overview of a daunting
topic.” To accomplish this task, they recruited “a wide selection of recognized
scholars, asking them to include the most important new developments
in their fields, as succinctly as possible.” I volunteered to write a
review on this book in an effort to learn the topic; the authors and editors of
Antisemitism: A History successfully taught me the facts and imparted their
opinions.
In the body of the work, 232 pages of this 288-page book, Lindemann
and Levy, with a distinguished supporting cast, educated me in true professorial
style. They used the classical formula, “Tell them what you’re going
to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them,” and did just that,
discussing the last 2,000 years of prejudice against Jews and antisemitism.
The introduction, the “Tell them what you’re going to tell them” and
including the subtitle “Antisemitism: What Is It? How Can We Best Understand
It?” begins the discussion; the epilogue, entitled “The Conclusion:
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