A Lethal Obsession

“A monumental and encyclopedic work—one of the most compelling studies of anti-Semitism past and present that I have read. It is likely to become the seminal work on the subject—a must for scholars of hate and anti-Semitism.” —Irwin Cotler, MP: Former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada; Professor of Law, McGill University

“A message of this remarkable work is that the Holocaust did not only discredit anti-Semitism. In a sinister way, the murder of six million Jews has also inspired fantasies of completing what the Third Reich had begun, and has led to widespread defamation of Israel by equating its policies with Nazism. The grim case that Robert Wistrich advances in A Lethal Obsession is overwhelming. In the awesome scale of its research, in its moral and literary force, and in its compelling political urgency, there is no book quite like it.”—Stephen J. Whitfield, Professor of American Civilization, Brandeis University.

“This is a splendid work of history. A masterpiece.”—Jonathan Israel, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

“Robert Wistrich’s work is a monument to scholarship, precision, and passion. It is likely to become the single most essential treatment of anti-Semitism for all those who seek to understand it and combat it.” —Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler

“At the heart of Wistrich’s book is a holistic and global approach that seeks to analyze and understand the evolution of a “culture of hatred” that has continued to dehumanize Jews until this very day. Intrigued by its uncanny ability to adapt, the author masterfully explores the various mutations of anti-Semitism where it connects with contemporary social and political crises. This book contains valuable new information and insights and is bound to become indispensable for the study of anti-Semitism world wide.”—Jehuda Reinharz, Richard Koret Professor of Modern Jewish History and President, Brandeis University

“In this major work of historical synthesis, Robert Wistrich offers abundant evidence that genocidal anti-Semitism, and apologetics and indifference about is not only a matter of the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Rather it remains a key element of contemporary affairs. A Lethal Obsession, the result of years of scholarship, presents a profound and incisive interpretation of anti-Semitism both before and after 1945. Wistrich offers remarkable, and infuriating details of the persistence and permutation of this hallucinatory set of ideas within Europe as well as in the Middle East, North Africa and Iran, He writes with the interpretive grasp of a historian of the first rank as well as with the passion and urgency that is so essential in the face of the genocidal threats made against Israel and the Jews in recent years. It is both a major work of enduring scholarly value as well as a much needed reminder to political leaders and citizens of the profound danger posed by the advocates of the delusions that anti-Semitism has fostered in the past and continues to foster in the present.”—Jeffrey Herf, author of The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust and Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World and professor of Modern European History, University of Maryland, College Park