Revolutionary Hebrew, Empire and Crisis

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Introduction: Toward a Sociological Gestalt

   • David Aberbach

   Pages 1-27

3. Hebrew Prophecy and the Negation of Empire 750–500 BCE

   • David Aberbach

   Pages 28-45

4. Hebrew in the ‘Evil Empire’ of Rome 66–200 CE

   • David Aberbach

   Pages 46-91

5. Hebrew Poetry and the Empire of Islam 1031–1140

   • David Aberbach

   Pages 92-116

6. Hebrew in the Tsarist Empire 1881–1917

   • David Aberbach

   Pages 117-137

7. Back Matter

   Pages 138-164

   PDF

Until 1948, Hebrew literature was created mostly under the rule of empires, notably those of ancient Mesopotamia, Rome, medieval Islam, and Tsarist Russia. Aberbach argues in this controversial book that several of the most original periods in the history of Hebrew coincided with - and resulted partly from - imperial crisis, involving violence against the Jews and radical shifts in Jewish demography and in the global balance of power. Jewish assimilation in the cultures of the empires was arrested, causing a psychological turn inward and the creation of revolutionary Hebrew literature.

• assimilation
• crisis
• culture
• demography
• psychology
• revolution
• sociology
• violence

• McGill University, Canada

  David Aberbach

• Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

  David Aberbach

Policies and ethics