Books
The Betrayal of the Duchess
Fighting to reclaim the French crown for the Bourbons, the duchesse de Berry faces betrayal at the hands of one of her closest advisors in this dramatic history of power and revolution.
Le droit à la différence
L’universalisme français et les Juifs
Traduit de l’anglais par Olivier Cyran
Contrairement à une croyance répandue, l’universalisme républicain n’a pas toujours cherché à éradiquer les « particularismes » minoritaires. À contre-pied des obsessions assimilationnistes qui refont surface aujourd’hui, cet ouvrage passionnant décrypte les ambivalences des élites françaises à l’égard de la « différence juive », depuis le XVIIIe siècle jusqu’à nos jours. Et montre que l’universalisme français a été façonné par une tension permanente entre antisémitisme et philosémitisme.
The Right to Difference: French Universalism and the Jews
Winner of the 2016 Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for the Best Book in French Studies (Modern Language Association)
Universal equality is a treasured political concept in France, but recent anxiety over the country’s Muslim minority has led to an emphasis on a new form of universalism, one promoting loyalty to the nation at the expense of all ethnic and religious affiliations. This timely book offers a fresh perspective on the debate by showing that French equality has not always demanded an erasure of differences.
Inventing the Israelite: Jewish Fiction in Nineteenth-Century France
Winner of the 2009 Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for the Best Book in French Studies (Modern Language Association)
In this book, Maurice Samuels brings to light little known works of literature produced from 1830 to 1870 by the first generation of Jews born as French citizens.
The Spectacular Past: Popular History and the Novel in Nineteenth-Century France
Winner of the 2007 Gaddis Smith Book Prize (MacMillan Center, Yale University)
Struggling to make sense of the Revolution of 1789, the French in the nineteenth century increasingly turned to visual forms of historical representation in a variety of media. Maurice Samuels shows how new kinds of popular entertainment introduced during and after the Revolution transformed the past into a spectacle.
Les grands auteurs juifs de la littérature française du XIXe siècle
La France a été la première nation européenne à accorder la citoyenneté aux Juifs, en 1790-1791. Ce faisant, la Révolution les a placés face à un dilemme: comment demeurer juif (ou, comme ils préféraient se désigner : israélite) tout en devenant français?
Nineteenth-Century Jewish Literature: A Reader
Recent scholarship has brought to light the existence of a dynamic world of specifically Jewish forms of literature in the nineteenth century—fiction by Jews, about Jews, and often designed largely for Jews. This volume makes this material accessible to English speakers for the first time, offering a selection of Jewish fiction from France, Great Britain, and the German-speaking world.