The perils of normalcy : George L. Mosse and the remaking of cultural history / Karel Plessini.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Plessini, Karel, author.

Series:

George L. Mosse series in modern European cultural and intellectual history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mosse, George L. (George Lachmann), 1918-1999.

Mosse, George L.

Historians--United States--Biography.

Historians.

United States.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

x, 284 pages : 1 illustration ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wisconsin : The University of Wisconsin Press, [2014]

Summary:

A Taboo-Breaker and a great provocateur, George L. Mosse (1918-99) was one of the great historians and teachers of the twentieth century, forging a new historiography of culture that included brilliant insights about the ideology of nationalism, fascism, racism, and gender. Jewish, gay, and a member of an influential German Jewish family, Mosse came of age as the Nazis came to power, before leaving Germany as a teenager for England and America. Mosse was a pioneer of interdisciplinary scholarship, and in his groundbreaking books he shattered the prevalent assumptions about the nature of National Socialism and the Holocaust. He audaciously drew a link between bourgeois respectability and the ideology of the Enlightenment-the very core of modern Western civilization-and the attempt to exterminate European Jews. In this intellectual biography of George Mosse, Karel Plessini draws on all of Mosses published and unpublished work to illuminate the origins and development of his groundbreaking methods of historical analysis and the close link between his life and work. Mosse redefined the understanding of modern mass society, war and mass death, and its impact on politics, masterfully revealing the powerful influence of conformity and political liturgies on twentieth-century history. He warned against the dangers inherent in acquiescence, showing how identity creation and ideological fervor can climax in intolerance and mass murder-a message of continuing relevance. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 From Machiavellism to Totalitarianism 19

2 Beyond the History of Intellectuals 38

3 The Roots of the Anthropological and Visual Turn 60

4 The Dark Side of Modernity 93

5 From Machiavellism to the Holocaust 115

6 The Missing Link: The Nationalist Revolution 132

7 The "True Mission of Judaism" 150

8 The Granitic Foundation of a Faith 169.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-266) and index.

ISBN:

9780299296346

0299296342

OCLC:

842307477