The Diabolical Causality
Publisher
:
Editions Calmann-Levy
Parution date
:
2006
EAN
:
9782702136799
Description
Leon Poliakov’s masterful La Causalité diabolique, published here in one volume with a preface by Pierre-André Taguieff, illuminates the role of conspiracy theory in several modern ideologies. Interpreting great historical events or social disasters as the result of an organized and evil conspiracy is indeed the central process that underpins not only racism but also many systems based on the persecution of a scapegoat. In part I, Essai sur l’origine des persécutions, Léon Poliakov concentrates his theory on the relations between Jesuits and the papacy during the English revolution, the royal court and the artistocrats, the Freemasons and philosophers at the moment of the French revolution, and the Jews throughout the history of Europe. In part II, Du Joug mongol à la victoire de Lénine, the author addresses the Russian revolution. Looking at the history of Russia, he is impressed by frequent clashes between the people and the powers, and looks at how this historical fact has added weight to the conspiracy theory. This idea reaches its peak with the “imperialist conspiracy” denounced by Lenin, and with the “Jewish conspiracy”, responsible, in the eyes of the White Russians, of the Bolshevist victory.
Author
Leon Poliakov : Léon Poliakov, who died in 1997, founded the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine. He was a director of research at the CNRS. The book that made his reputation, Bréviaire de la haine (published in 1951) was drawn from his experience as an expert at the Nuremberg trials. He published numerous other works, among them the monumental Histoire de l’antisémistime (published in 1955).
|