Capitalism and the Jews
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"This learned and suggestive little volume distills two centuries of wisdom concerning Jews and capitalism into four provocative essays. Drawing freely upon economic history, Jewish history, and the history of ideas, Jerry Muller moves deftly from European thinkers to Jewish traders and from Communists to nationalists. Along the way, he dispenses fresh insights, little known information, and much common sense concerning issues too often shrouded in myth, bigotry, ideology, and apologetics."--Jonathan D. Sarna, Brandeis University"This book was hard to put down. It is a pleasure to read a work so provocative, so relevant, and so deeply informed."--Daniel Chirot, University of Washington"This is a magisterial work. It traces the relation of Jews to capitalism from the early modern period to the contemporary world, placing it in the context of the development of modernity's political institutions and culture. This book will be indispensable reading for anyone interested in Jewish history, but also for those seeking to understand the overall drama of modernity."--Peter L. Berger, professor emeritus, Boston University"This is a superb and enlightening book."--Andrei Markovits, University of Michigan"Jerry Muller has written an indispensable book correcting myriad misperceptions about capitalism, the Jews, and the affinities between them. He treats troubling subjects such as the relation of Jews to Communism and the persistence of anti-Semitism with exceptional delicacy and common sense. If clarification could bring about correction, this compressed historical account would do much to 'repair the world.'"--Ruth R. Wisse, Harvard University The New York Times - Catherine Rampell The question of why so many Jews have been so good at making money is a touchy one. For hundreds of years, it has been fraught with suspicion, denial, resentment, guilt, self-hatred and violence. No wonder Jews and gentiles alike are so uncomfortable confronting Jewish capitalistic competence. Still, in his slim essay collection Capitalism and the Jews, Jerry Z. Muller presents a provocative and accessible survey of how Jewish culture and historical accident ripened Jews for commercial success and why that success has earned them so much misfortune…While this book is ostensibly about "the Jews," Muller's most chilling insights are about their enemies, and the creative, almost supernatural, malleability of anti-Semitism itself. For centuries, poverty, paranoia and financial illiteracy have combined into a dangerous brew—one that has made economic virtuosity look suspiciously like social vice.
Introduction Thinking About Jews and Capitalism 1Ch. 1 The Long Shadow of Usury: Capitalism and the Jews in Modern European Thought 15Ch. 2 The Jewish Response to Capitalism: Milton Friedman's Paradox Reconsidered 72Ch. 3 Radical Anticapitalism: The Jew as Communist 133Ch. 4 The Economics of Nationalism and the Fate of the Jews in Twentieth-Century Europe 189Acknowledgments 219Notes 225Index 255
