Includes articles on Walter Benjamin, S.Y. Agnon, Martin Buber, and on Israel and the diaspora.

Jacob Katz presents a major reinterpretation of modern anti-Semitism that blends history of ideas with social analysis. He describes the process by which a set of negative ideas about the Jews gradually became transformed and then, around 1879, picked up so much social force as to result in the premeditated and systematic destruction of the Jewish people of Europe.

A history of the Jews in Germany from the 4th century to 1941. Throughout this period the Jews tried to integrate into German society, but they were unsuccessful due to antisemitism. Pp. 20-31 mention restrictions imposed on the Jews in medieval Germany (e.g. specific Jewish clothing, the yellow badge), and other manifestations of antisemitism (e.g. blood libels, persecution caused by the Black Death, anti-Jewish writings by Luther). Pp. 254-283 describe the situation of German Jews under Nazism between 1933-41.

Nineteenth-century European thought, especially in Germany, was increasingly dominated by a new historicist impulse to situate every event, person, or text in its particular context. At odds with the transcendent claims of philosophy and--more significantly--theology, historicism came to be attacked by its critics for reducing human experience to a series of disconnected moments, each of which was the product of decidedly mundane, rather than sacred, origins. By the late nineteenth century and into the Weimar period, historicism was seen by many as a grinding force that corroded social values and was emblematic of modern societys gravest ills. Resisting History examines the backlash against historicism, focusing on four major Jewish thinkers. David Myers situates these thinkers in proximity to leading Protestant thinkers of the time, but argues that German Jews and Christians shared a complex cultural and discursive world best understood in terms of exchange and adaptation rather than influence.After examining the growing dominance of the new historicist thinking in the nineteenth century, the book analyzes the critical responses of Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Leo Strauss, and Isaac Breuer. For this fascinating and diverse quartet of thinkers, historicism posed a stark challenge to the ongoing vitality of Judaism in the modern world. And yet, as they set out to dilute or eliminate its destructive tendencies, these thinkers often made recourse to the very tools and methods of historicism. In doing so, they demonstrated the utter inescapability of historicism in modern culture, whether approached from a Christian or Jewish perspective.

The period from November, 1989 to November, 1990 can be compared with such decisive dates in twentieth-century European history as 1918 and 1945. Germany and Europe have entered a crucial period of transition altering the European security landscape considerably. The documents published in this volume--many of them for the first time--provide an important record of this historic period. Key papers by some of the leading German politicians of this period, delivered at Potsdam in February, 1990, are presented, along with a sober assessment of the role which the united Germany can play in the newly emerging structure of European security.