This masterwork of interpretative history begins with a bold
declaration: The Modern Age is the Jewish Age--and we are all, to
varying degrees, Jews.
The assertion is, of course, metaphorical. But it underscores
Yuri Slezkine's provocative thesis. Not only have Jews adapted
better than many other groups to living in the modern world, they
have become the premiere symbol and standard of modern life
everywhere.
Slezkine argues that the Jews were, in effect, among the world's
first free agents. They traditionally belonged to a social and
anthropological category known as "service nomads," an outsider
group specializing in the delivery of goods and services. Their
role, Slezkine argues, was part of a broader division of human
labor between what he calls Mercurians-entrepreneurial
minorities--and Apollonians--food-producing majorities.
Since the dawning of the Modern Age, Mercurians have taken
center stage. In fact, Slezkine argues, modernity is all about
Apollonians becoming Mercurians--urban, mobile, literate,
articulate, intellectually intricate, physically fastidious, and
occupationally flexible. Since no group has been more adept at
Mercurianism than the Jews, he contends, these exemplary ancients
are now model moderns.
The book concentrates on the drama of the Russian Jews,
including emigres and their offspring in America, Palestine, and
the Soviet Union. But Slezkine has as much to say about the many
faces of modernity--nationalism, socialism, capitalism, and
liberalism--as he does about Jewry. Marxism and Freudianism, for
example, sprang largely from the Jewish predicament, Slezkine
notes, and both Soviet Bolshevism and American liberalism were
affected in fundamental ways by the Jewish exodus from the Pale of
Settlement.
Rich in its insight, sweeping in its chronology, and fearless
in its analysis, this sure-to-be-controversial work is an important
contribution not only to Jewish and Russian history but to the
history of Europe and America as well."
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