Resisting History

Description

"Resisting History examines the backlash against historicism, focusing on four major Jewish thinkers. David Myers situates these thinkers in proximity to leading Protestant thinkers of the time, but argues that German Jews and Christians shared a complex cultural and discursive world best understood in terms of exchange and adaptation rather than influence." "After examining the growing dominance of the new historicist thinking in the nineteenth century, the book analyzes the critical responses of Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Leo Strauss, and Isaac Breuer. For this fascinating and diverse quartet of thinkers, historicism posed a stark challenge to the ongoing vitality of Judaism in the modern world. And yet, as they set out to dilute or eliminate its destructive tendencies, these thinkers often made recourse to the very tools and methods of historicism. In doing so, they demonstrated the utter inescapability of historicism in modern culture, whether approached from a Christian or Jewish perspective."--Jacket.

First Sentence

Throughout much of their lengthy history, Jews have inhabited two temporal realms: one anchored by belief in Divine supervision and regulated by their own ritual calendar; the second marked by their immersion in a social, economic, and political world that revolves around a Gentile calendar.

Excerpt

Throughout much of their lengthy history, Jews have inhabited two temporal realms: one anchored by belief in Divine supervision and regulated by their own ritual calendar; the second marked by their immersion in a social, economic, and political world that revolves around a Gentile calendar.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Resisting History: Historicism and Its Discontents in German-Jewish Thought (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World)HardcoverPrinceton University Press2003-10-13
• Resisting HistoryPrinceton University Press2021-01-01