Background
Nordau was born Simon Maximilian, or Simcha Südfeld, on 29 July 1849 in Pest, then part of the Austrian Empire. His father was Gabriel Südfeld, a Hebrew poet.
(Max Nordau was a famous writer, a practicing physician, a...)
Max Nordau was a famous writer, a practicing physician, a bourgeois examplar of enterprise and energy when his Degeneration appeared in Germany in 1892. He argued that the spirit of the times was characterized by enervation, exhaustion, hysteria, egotism, and inability to adjust or to act. Culture had degenerated, he said, and if criminals, prostitutes, anarchists, and lunatics were degenerates, so were the authors and artists of the era. Degeneration, and the controversy it aroused, served to define the fine de siècle. Its targets included Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Richard Wagner, Zola, and Walt Whitman. The book was enormously influential. Nordau anticipated Freud in describing art as a product of neurosis, and he set a precedent for psychological and sociological critiques of literature. You may wish to talk back to Degeneration, as George Bernard Shaw did, but you will be entertained by its vitality. Holbrook Jackson, in The Eighteen Nineties, called the book "an example of the very liveliness of a period which was equally lively in making or marring itself." Max Nordau was a famous writer, a practicing physician, a bourgeois examplar of enterprise and energy when his Degeneration appeared in Germany in 1892. He argued that the spirit of the times was characterized by enervation, exhaustion, hysteria, egotism, and inability to adjust or to act. Culture had degenerated, he said, and if criminals, prostitutes, anarchists, and lunatics were degenerates, so were the authors and artists of the era. Degeneration, and the controversy it aroused, served to define the fine de siècle. Its targets included Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Richard Wagner, Zola, and Walt Whitman. The book was enormously influential. Nordau anticipated Freud in describing art as a product of neurosis, and he set a precedent for psychological and sociological critiques of literature. You may wish to talk back to Degeneration, as George Bernard Shaw did, but you will be entertained by its vitality. Holbrook Jackson, in The Eighteen Nineties, called the book "an example of the very liveliness of a period which was equally lively in making or marring itself."
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1892
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
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1899
(Max Nordau to his people, : A summons and a challenge; [M...)
Max Nordau to his people, : A summons and a challenge; [Max Simon Nordau, B. Netanyahu] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.
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(Michael Stanislawski's provocative study of Max Nordau, E...)
Michael Stanislawski's provocative study of Max Nordau, Ephraim Moses Lilien, and Vladimir Jabotinsky reconceives the intersection of the European fin de siècle and early Zionism. Stanislawski takes up the tantalizing question of why Zionism, at a particular stage in its development, became so attractive to certain cosmopolitan intellectuals and artists. With the help of hundreds of previously unavailable documents, published and unpublished, he reconstructs the ideological journeys of writer and critic Nordau, artist Lilien, and political icon Jabotinsky. He argues against the common conception of Nordau and Jabotinsky as nineteenth-century liberals, insisting that they must be understood against the backdrop of Social Darwinism in the West and the Positivism of Russian radicalism in the fin de siècle, as well as Symbolism, Decadence, and Art Nouveau. When these men turned to Zionism, Stanislawski says, far from abandoning their aesthetic and intellectual preconceptions, they molded Zionism according to their fin de siècle cosmopolitanism. Showing how cosmopolitanism turned to nationalism in the lives and work of these crucial early Zionists, this story is a fascinating chapter in European and Russian, as well as Jewish, cultural and political history. Michael Stanislawski's provocative study of Max Nordau, Ephraim Moses Lilien, and Vladimir Jabotinsky reconceives the intersection of the European fin de siècle and early Zionism. Stanislawski takes up the tantalizing question of why Zionism, at a particular stage in its development, became so attractive to certain cosmopolitan intellectuals and artists. With the help of hundreds of previously unavailable documents, published and unpublished, he reconstructs the ideological journeys of writer and critic Nordau, artist Lilien, and political icon Jabotinsky. He argues against the common conception of Nordau and Jabotinsky as nineteenth-century liberals, insisting that they must be understood against the backdrop of Social Darwinism in the West and the Positivism of Russian radicalism in the fin de siècle, as well as Symbolism, Decadence, and Art Nouveau. When these men turned to Zionism, Stanislawski says, far from abandoning their aesthetic and intellectual preconceptions, they molded Zionism according to their fin de siècle cosmopolitanism. Showing how cosmopolitanism turned to nationalism in the lives and work of these crucial early Zionists, this story is a fascinating chapter in European and Russian, as well as Jewish, cultural and political history.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520227883/?tag=2022091-20
Nordau was born Simon Maximilian, or Simcha Südfeld, on 29 July 1849 in Pest, then part of the Austrian Empire. His father was Gabriel Südfeld, a Hebrew poet.
His family were religious Orthodox Jews and he attended a Jewish elementary school, then a Catholic grammar school, before receiving a medical degree from the University of Budapest in 1872. He then traveled for six years, visiting the principal countries of Europe. He changed his name before going to Berlin in 1873. In 1878, he began the practice of medicine in Budapest. In 1880 he went to Paris. He worked in Paris as a correspondent for Die Neue Freie Presse, and it was in Paris that he spent most of his life.
He published his first poem when he was fourteen and at sixteen was a theater critic. Nordau qualified as a physician in 1876 and opened a general practice, eventually specializing in psychiatry. He traveled widely during his student days, writing for several Budapest newspapers, chiefly the German language Pester Lloyd. The name Max Nordau was originally a pseudonym, which he adopted legally in 1873. In 1880 he moved to Paris, practiced medicine, married a Danish Protestant, and was correspondent for the Pester Lloyd, the Vienna Neue Freie Presse, and the Frankfurter Zeitung. He also wrote on contemporary political and social issues.
A trenchant critic of contemporary society and the arts, Nordau gained fame and popularity with his iconoclasic, radical, witty articles. He wrote for the theater The War of Millions(1882), The Right to Love (1894), and The Ball (1894). He also wrote novels: The Sickness of the Century (1889), Comedy of Sentiment (1891), Seelenanalysen (1892), and Drohnenschlacht (1898); The Drone Must Die (1899). His travelogues and critical essays were published in several volumes, the best known of which was Der Sinn der Geschichte (1909). The Intepretation of History (1910), Paradoxes (1885), and Degeneracy (1892-1893) brought him worldwide prominence. They were rationalist attacks on the superstitions that he saw as threatening civilized society including religion, nationalism, and racism. Degeneracy criticizes all forms of modernity. He proposed the establishment of a society for ethical culture that would examine works of art and publicly condemn those found to be "degenerate.” Degeneracy was a best-seller, translated into most western languages, evoking both superlative acclaim and total repudiation. Some likened him to Heinrich Heine and Baruch Spinoza; William James called the book “a pathological book on a pathological subject.” George Bernard Shaw, while paying tribute to Nordau as a “vigorousand capablcjour- nalist,” wrote, “he is so utterly mad on the subject of degeneracy that he finds symptoms of it in the loftiest geniuses as plainly as in the lowest jailbirds, the exception being himself, Cesare Lombroso, Krafft-Ebbing. Goethe, Shakespeare and Beethoven.” The Conventional Lies was forbidden in Russia and Austria and put on the Index by the Vatican. The opposition to his views culminated in his expulsion from France during World War I; he spent several years in Madrid, returning to France only after the end of hostilities.
Nordau first met Theodor Herzl in 1892, when both were on the staff of the Neue Freie Presse. There was such an instantaneous sympathy between them that Herzl wrote in his “Diary”: “We were so much of one mind that I already started to think that the same ideas had led him to the same conclusions. But no, his were different. ‘Anti-Semitism will force the Jews to destroy the very concept of a fatherland everywhere’ he said. ‘Or to create a fatherland of their own’ I thought secretly to myself." Herzl consulted him while writ¬ing his Jewish State in 1896 and was greatly encouraged by Nordau, who became his staunch¬est supporter and closest life friend. When Herzl expounded his dream of Zionism, Nordau took his hand and said “You may be mad — but if you are, I am as mad as you.”
Nordau’s critique of contemporary society included not only the debunking of Nietzsche’s theory of the superman but also of contemporary anti-Semitism and an analysis of the condition of Jews in Western society, of their pitiful efforts to seek acceptance by a society that rejected them. His drama Dr. Kohn (1898) illustrates this viewpoint.
Beginning with the First Zionist Congress (1897), Nordau presented a comprehensive and magisterial review of the world Jewish situation at each congress for the next ten years, insisting that the only viable solution to the Jewish question was Zionism. It was he who drafted the Basel Program, the original basic statement of the aims of Zionism. Nordau delivered these annual reviews with great verve and they were the highlight of each congress. He was an impressive figure and, in Herzl’s words, “a silver-tongued orator.” He foresaw the fate of European Jewry very clearly; as early as 1911, he proclaimed to the Eleventh Zionist Congress that six million European Jews were in danger of immediate extermination. The “realists” denounced this warning.
In the eyes of east European Zionists, Nordau typified the western Jew who looked upon them patronizingly. Chaim Weizmann described him as “a prima donna, a great speaker in the classical style,” in whose development as a Zionist “the cleavage between East and West, between organic and schematic Zionism” was manifest. Nordau remained undaunted in his support of Herzl, even during the Uganda crisis.
(Michael Stanislawski's provocative study of Max Nordau, E...)
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
1899(Max Nordau was a famous writer, a practicing physician, a...)
1892(Max Nordau to his people, : A summons and a challenge; [M...)
(Degeneration Translated from the second edition of the Ge...)
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
1878Nordau's conversion to Zionism is in many ways typical of the rise of Zionism amongst Western European Jewry.
Nordau also, at the 1898 Zionist Congress, coined the term "muscular Judaism" (muskel-Judenthum) as a descriptor of a Jewish culture and religion which directed its adherents to reach for certain moral and corporeal ideals which, through discipline, agility and strength, would result in a stronger, more physically assured Jew who would outshine the long-held stereotype of the weak, intellectually sustained Jew. He would further explore the concept of the "muscle Jew" in a 1900 article of the Jewish Gymnastics Journal
Nordau's conversion to Zionism is in many ways typical of the rise of Zionism amongst Western European Jewry. The Dreyfus affair was central to Theodor Herzl's conviction that Zionism was now necessary. Herzl's views were formed during his time in France where he recognised the universality of antisemitism; the Dreyfus Affair cemented his belief in the failure of assimilation. Nordau also witnessed the Paris mob outside the École Militaire crying "à morts les juifs!".
Nordau was central to the Zionist Congresses which played such a vital part in shaping what Zionism would become. Herzl had favoured the idea of a Jewish newspaper and an elitist "Society of Jews" to spread the ideas of Zionism. It was Nordau, convinced that Zionism had to at least appear democratic, despite the impossibility of representing all Jewish groups, who persuaded Herzl of the need for an assembly. This appearance of democracy certainly helped counter accusations that the "Zionists represented no one but themselves." There would be eleven such Congresses in all. The first, which Nordau organised, was in Basle, 29–31 August 1897. His fame as an intellectual helped draw attention to the project. Indeed, the fact that Max Nordau, the trenchant essayist and journalist, was a Jew came as a revelation for many. Herzl obviously took centre stage, making the first speech at the Congress; Nordau followed him with an assessment of the Jewish condition in Europe. Nordau used statistics to paint a portrait of the dire straits of Eastern Jewry and also expressed his belief in the destiny of Jewish people as a democratic nation state, free of what he saw as the constraints of Emancipation.
Nordau was central to the Zionist Congresses which played such a vital part in shaping what Zionism would become. Herzl had favoured the idea of a Jewish newspaper and an elitist "Society of Jews" to spread the ideas of Zionism.
Quotations: In England, Emancipation is a truth…It had already been completed in the heart before legislation expressly confirmed it.
Nordau was central to the Zionist Congresses which played such a vital part in shaping what Zionism would become. Herzl had favoured the idea of a Jewish newspaper and an elitist "Society of Jews" to spread the ideas of Zionism. It was Nordau, convinced that Zionism had to at least appear democratic, despite the impossibility of representing all Jewish groups, who persuaded Herzl of the need for an assembly.
After Herzl’s untimely death in 1904. he refused the presidency of the Zionist Organization, although he presided over the 1905 congress. After 1911 he ceased to attend congresses, deprecating the direction taken by Zionism towards Chaim Weizmann’s practical Zionism as against his own political Zionism.
Quotes from others about the person
He was an impressive figure and, in Herzl’s words, “a silver-tongued orator.” He foresaw the fate of European Jewry very clearly.
There was such an instantaneous sympathy between them that Herzl wrote in his “Diary”: “We were so much of one mind that I already started to think that the same ideas had led him to the same conclusions. But no, his were different. ‘Anti-Semitism will force the Jews to destroy the very concept of a fatherland everywhere’ he said. ‘Or to create a fatherland of their own’ I thought secretly to myself."
He was married to a Protestant Christian woman.