Review: Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews

University of Central Florida STARS Faculty Bibliography 1990s Faculty Bibliography 1-1-1999 Review: Esau's tears: Modern anti-semitism and the rise of the Jews Bruce F. Pauley University of Central Florida Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/facultybib1990 University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Bibliography at STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Bibliography 1990s by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact STARS@ucf.edu. Recommended Citation Pauley, Bruce F., "Review: Esau's tears: Modern anti-semitism and the rise of the Jews" (1999). Faculty Bibliography 1990s. 2777. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/facultybib1990/2777 Book Reviews Marginal Europe: The Contribution of Marginal Lands since the Middle Ages. By Sidney Pollard. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1997. Pp. 327. Sidney Pollard's study, which he locates ªon the borderline between geography and economic historyº (p. 257), is divided into two parts. The ®rst part considers ªtheoriesº of the margin, the way in which contemporaries and historians have understood the idea of marginal regions in Europe. Separate chapters examine the expansion of the occu- pied territory of Europe since the collapse of the Roman Empire, the judgments of observers that marginal populations were especially backward (ªThe Negative Viewº) or industrious and self-reliant (ªThe Positive Viewº), and the idea of a complementary linkage between marginal areas and economic centers. The second half of the book presents a series of case studies of marginal lands: the German colonization of Eastern Europe in the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries; the economic activities of the Cistercian monasteries in the same period; the Central European mining regions in the Early Modern period; and the Industrial Revolution in the marginal regions of England, principally Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. The two parts of the book are related, if tenuously. Pollard's overall thesis is that marginal regions, de®ned less in relation to political, economic, and cultural centers than as geographic types, have his- torically been the ªmainsprings of European progressº (p. 220). Societies on the margins contained an identi®able set of characteristics that made them more ªself-reliantº and ªadaptable.º Relatively unhampered by restrictive regulations, they became the sites of important technological, economic, and even cultural innovation that Pollard unself-consciously links to ªprogress.º This is a bold and ambitious set of claims, and Pollard has mobilized a vast scholar- ship (his bibliography runs to ®fty-three tightly printed pages) supporting his argument. In truth, he is careful to limit the scope of his inquiry: the Europe in question amounts to that part north and east of the Alps, making up a region of ªrelative homogeneityº distinct from, for example, the Mediterranean regions. Given the author's insistence on the geographic setting as a framework of economic innovation, the conspicuous absence of maps in this volume is problematic and at times makes it dif®cult for nonspecialists of the region. What, then, is a marginal land? Pollard carefully chooses his margins: forests, marshes (and fens), and uplands (mountains) were marginal regions in the period when food production dominated the economy. While the author draws a number of distinc- tions among these different kinds of margins, and while he recognizes some of the dif®culties in lumping them together under a single rubric, he nonetheless insists that these geographic settings are similar enough to be grouped together, although largely by their noneconomic characteristics (their relative inaccessibility, political marginality, and cultural isolation). More generally, Pollard argues that these structural similarities give rise to a ªdistinct societal personality or characterº (p. 264), which includes not only the traits of adaptability and self-reliance but also the strength of family loyalties, the presence of martial characteristics, and the likelihood of embracing ªextreme or Permission to reprint a book review printed in this section may be obtained only from the author. This content downloaded from 132.170.015.255 on November 05, 2019 07:03:14 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). Book Reviews 661 superstitious forms of religion.º The result is a lapse into a kind of geographic determin- ism that sometimes reproduces the perspectives of contemporaries that the author so usefully describes in the ®rst part of his study. More puzzling still is the moveÐat times understated, at times quite boldÐfrom economic ªprogressº to a more general set of claims about modernity. Pollard shows in great detail how the German colonization of Eastern Europe involved substantial innovationsÐboth technological and organizationalÐof a ªprogressive agricultureº and claims that the colonists represented ªislands of modernity in a sea of backward- nessº (p. 155). In the case of the Cistercians, Pollard paints a portrait of monasteries located on marginal lands that were bastions of innovation and ªpioneering activitiesº in the draining of marshes, clearing of forests, and building of canals, in addition to innovation and experimentation in agricultural methods. The monks thus achieved methods of estate management, he argues, that were centuries ahead of their time. Con- cerning mining and metallurgy in Central Europe, Pollard pushes his argument further, claiming that the ªRenaissance menº who ran the mines not only ªtook the leadº in producing a broad range of key technologies and scienti®c knowledge (in geology, min- erology, and medicine) but also were culturally and artistically ªadvanced.º Not only did metallurgy and mining produce scientists, artists, and intellectuals of note, but the miners themselves could be considered ªmen of freedom who had emancipated themselves from the surrounding feudal orderº (p. 195) and who were open to the ªmodern- izingº in¯uences of the Reformation. As for the Industrial Revolution itself, Pollard rehearses the widely accepted consensus of the regionally speci®c location of early industry in the more marginal northern counties, which enjoyed a tradition of low tax assessments, a greater measure of freedom and independence, and important geographic assets (water supply, cheap land, a skilled labor force)Ðall features that made the marginal lands ªa key location in what turned out to be the decisive breakthrough into modernityº (p. 233). This unfortunate tendency to collapse economic innovation within a broader notion of ªmodernityº and ªprogressº in the end limits the bolder claims of this book. Readers attracted by the title of this book and anticipating an innovative contribution to the growing literature on marginal peoples and regions will be disappointed. Interesting, learned, and scholarly, the book's approach is ®rmly grounded in a traditional master narrative of European progress. Peter Sahlins University of California, Berkeley The Artisan and the European Town, 1500±1900. Edited by Geoffrey Crossick. Historical Urban Studies. Edited by Richard Rodger and Jean-Luc Pinol. Hants, England: Scolar Press, 1997. Pp. xiiiϩ263. $76.95. Radical Artisans in England and France, 1830±1870. By Iorwerth Prothero. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xviϩ424. $74.95. Fresh winds sweep the ®eld of European labor history. In the 1960s labor history was driven by social history. By the end of the 1970s, culturalism and postmodernism seemed irresistible. Now, although both social and cultural concerns remain important, a recon®gured political history is emerging on the scene. Geoffrey Crossick's collection on artisans in the European town surveys current approaches to artisanal history, while This content downloaded from 132.170.015.255 on November 05, 2019 07:03:14 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 662 Book Reviews Iorwerth Prothero's study of Anglo-French radicalism synthesizes these approaches and points in new directions. An accomplished labor historian and veteran editor, Crossick excels himself here, selecting focused case studies of urban artisan life that employ new sources in innova- È tive ways. Ranging from Reval (Tallinn) and Malmo in the Baltic to Nantes and Bor- deaux in the Bay of Biscay, Crossick includes case studies of London, Groningen, Paris, and Vienna. Contributors have been encouraged to explore the wider consequences of local ®ndings. The motif here (and telltale sign of a Crossick collection) is the crisp summary of prodigious quantities of research. Crossick's thoughtful introduction identi®es important characteristics of artisanal life. In contrast with so many industrial occupations that were part-time or temporary, artisanal status was a lifetime project that involved the whole household, created a pow- erful social and political identity, and emphasized the masculine character of craftsman- ship. Crossick reminds us that towns with a population around ®fteen thousand, de- scribed by the German historian Mack Walker as ªhometowns,º were hothouses for the cultivation of artisanal identity, while large and growing cities invariably challenged artisanal monopolies. Christopher R. Friedrich's discussion of Reval and other German- dominated craft towns

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