This book builds upon my previous work, A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy (Macdonald 1994/2002; hereafter PTSDA).
Parts of the book read as a sort of extended discourse on the role of Jewish self-interest, deception, and self-deception in the areas of Jewish historiography, Jewish personal identity.
A major theme of this volume, found especially in Chapters 6 and 7, is that intellectual defenses of Judaism and of Jewish theories of Anti-Semitism have throughout its history played a critical role in maintaining Judaism as a group Evolutionary strategy.
Nevertheless, the charge that this is an anti-Semitic book is, to use White\'s phrase, expectable and completely in keeping with the thesis of this essay.
No personal or ethnic attacks are intended here, either.
We wish to state that no personal attacks are intended.
Such a charge is, in fact, expectable and completely in keeping with the thesis of this essay.
Nevertheless, as Leslie White (1966, 3) wrote many years ago in his discussion of the Boasian school of anthropology as a politically inspired cult, One who follows procedures such as these incurs the risk of being accused of indulging in non-scholarly, personal attacks upon whom he discusses.
This cultural and genetic separatism combined with resource competition and other conflicts of interest tend to result in division and hatred within the society.
The basic thesis of this book can be summarized by the proposition that Judaism must be conceptualized as a group strategy characterized by cultural and genetic segregation from gentile societies combined with resource competition and conflicts of interest with segments of gentile societies.
Moreover, Anti-Semitism has sometimes been characterized by a very overt, self-conscious racialism...a phenomenon that immediately suggests the relevance of Evolutionary theory.
Many anti-Semitic episodes, such as the Iberian inquisitions and the Nazi holocaust, have been characterized by extraordinary intra-societal violence.
Anti-Semitism has been a very robust tendency over a very long period of human history and in a wide range of societies with different forms of government, different economic systems, and different dominant religious ideologies.
Judaism and Anti-Semitism fairly cry out for an Evolutionary interpretation.
While PTSDA focused on developing a Theory of Judaism within an Evolutionary framework, the present volume focuses on the phenomenon of anti-Semitism.
This book builds upon my previous work, A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy (Macdonald 1994/2002; hereafter PTSDA)
