A History of Zionism
by Walter Laqueur · 1 Jan 1972 · 965pp · 267,053 words
children to non-Jewish schools and modernised their religious service. Among the intellectuals there was a growing conviction that the new Judaism, purged of medieval obscurantism, was an intermediate stage towards enlightened Christianity. They argued that the Jews were not a people; Jewish nationhood had ceased to exist two thousand years
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disputations of this kind, was it surprising that the Jewish readers of Voltaire had little but derision for what they regarded as the forces of obscurantism? Much of the influence of the Enlightenment was shallow and its fallacies were demonstrated only too clearly in subsequent decades. But in the clash between
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, especially during the later period, were the ‘Black Hundred’ and other movements of the extreme Right, which preached a mixture of extreme nationalism and religious obscurantism. The tsarist government was rightly accused of aiding and abetting the pogromists in the hope of diverting popular dissatisfaction. But anti-semitism was not manufactured
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men, the forerunners of both Barnum and modern revivalism. Jewish society as it emerges from these novels is engrossed in unending internal strife, engulfed in obscurantism and prejudice, stubbornly resisting any reform. True, there are redeeming features, such as the traditional respect for learning; but the traditional subjects are criticised for
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him than for so many of his contemporaries to face unpleasant truths. He was not satisfied to interpret antisemitism solely in terms of jealousy or obscurantism. He, too, regarded Judaeophobia as a psychic aberration, but in his view it was hereditary. Transmitted as a disease for two thousand years, it was
A History of Judaism
by Martin Goodman · 25 Oct 2017 · 768pp · 252,874 words
of this text, but the style of the book is so allusive that it is hard to know exactly what he intended to convey. The obscurantism may have been deliberate. It certainly did not prevent the text becoming popular. Equally embedded in rabbinic discourse was astrology, with frequent references in the
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those rabbis who devoted themselves to hiddushim which constantly expanded the halakhah. The codifiers did not hide their frustration at what they saw as the obscurantism of their rabbinical colleagues who delighted in complicating the law under which Jews did their best to live in piety. Yaakov b. Asher complained in
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sides. It was not accidental that Martin Luther’s theses were posted in Wittenberg in 1517 at the height of the controversy, in which the obscurantism of elements in the Church had been so effectively revealed by Reuchlin’s supporters, who included many of the leading humanists of the day. Both
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in critical academic studies in German universities and sought to apply the same techniques to the classical Jewish sources without what they saw as the obscurantism of traditional rabbinic approaches or the hostility of Christian scholars. The Wissenschaft des Judentums (‘Science of Judaism’) to which they devoted themselves was intended to
Lotharingia: A Personal History of Europe's Lost Country
by Simon Winder · 22 Apr 2019
(on the border with France) or of Fürstenburg (in the Black Forest) had many fewer resources than the major counts. But that is probably enough obscurantism for one section – the book can return to the western exclaves of the Duke of Württemberg later on. Sticking to the post-Treaty of Ribemont
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break. It was though the republican bit that was most striking. Republics had been small historical oddities – the Swiss, stagnant Venice, some bits of religious obscurantism inside the Holy Roman Empire such as the Abbey of Essen – and now they suddenly seemed chic, big scale and workable. As the Dutch wound
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making Britain again absolutely hostile to France – the British seeing Napoleon now not as the quixotic liberal supporter of Italian unification over Austria’s fossil obscurantism, but as an acquisitive adventurer in the same mould as his uncle. The 1848 revolutions and the Italian wars, combined with extensive colonial activity, made
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base (the by now President de Gaulle would fly there when he panicked about his safety during the 1968 uprising). In a miracle of geographical obscurantism the tiny German enclave of Büsingen, a piece of land on the Rhine surrounded by the Swiss canton of Schaffhausen, fell under French control. Special
A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy
by Joel Mokyr · 8 Jan 2016 · 687pp · 189,243 words
nature in the service of humans had been around since the Middle Ages, but what counted was its triumph over what their proponents regarded as obscurantism and superstition. Seventeenth-century science prepared the ground for the Industrial Enlightenment by stressing mankind’s relationship with the environment as based on intelligibility and
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university in Europe, and the government of Venice bent over backward to accommodate its distinguished if opinionated faculty and protected them from papal and Jesuit obscurantism. The University of Leyden in its golden age in the first half of the eighteenth century was perhaps the most dynamic and successful institution spreading
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knowledge. These ideas, in some form, had been around since the Middle Ages, but what counted was their triumph over what progressive intellectuals regarded as obscurantism and superstition. Religious warfare had been shown to have been a rather futile and destructive endeavor, and a growing number of people were advocating the
What's Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way
by Nick Cohen · 15 Jul 2015 · 414pp · 121,243 words
post-modern academics employed by the states they presumably wanted to topple to teach ‘theory’ in Western universities. Anderson did not realize that their infamous obscurantism was a sign of their cowardice as well as their political isolation. Writers write badly when they have something to hide. Clarity makes their shaky
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and recommendations for the future. For academics, of all people, this is a disreputable way of going about business, but one that has many uses. Obscurantism spared the theorists who emerged from the grave of Marxism the pain of testing dearly held beliefs and prejudices, as well as the inevitable accusations
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in America and around the world had turned domestic violence from a private torment to a public crime – and marvel at the transformation. The theorists’ obscurantism marked the conclusion of the strange story of the 1968 generation of radicals, many of whom ended up standing on their heads and using the
The Accidental Theorist: And Other Dispatches From the Dismal Science
by Paul Krugman · 18 Feb 2010 · 162pp · 51,473 words
things that would be obviously silly if their meaning were not obscured by the math. But not all of the technicality of modern economics is obscurantism; sometimes it is actually a way to make things clearer and simpler. Still, there should be a lot more accessible, interesting, even exciting writing about
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novice central banker naive enough to speak plainly realizes why more experienced hands, however well-intentioned and clear-headed, prefer to cloak their actions in obscurantism and hypocrisy. But while hypocrisy has its uses, it also has its dangers—above all, the danger that you may start to believe the things
Europe: A History
by Norman Davies · 1 Jan 1996
barbarism, parochiality, religious bigotry. During the Enlightenment, when the virtues of human reason were openly lauded over those of religious belief, ‘medievalism’ became synonymous with obscurantism and backwardness. Since then, of course, as the ‘Modern Age’ which followed the Middle Age was itself fading into the past, new terms had to
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feuds between the ultramontanes, Gallicans, and Jansenists, which culminated in 1764 with the expulsion of the Jesuits, degenerated into a ritual round of spite and obscurantism. The chasm between court and people yawned ever wider. The most memorable personality of the age must surely be that of Jeanne Poisson, Mme de
Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think
by Alan Grafen; Mark Ridley · 1 Jan 2006 · 286pp · 90,530 words
Phenotype, after it was published in 1982. I was much enjoying reading Richard’s response until I came to a scarcely veiled attack on my ‘obscurantism’. With friends like that who needs enemies! Richard referred to my ‘superficially amusing but deeply misleading suggestion that a gene is a nest’s way
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and Complexity Richard recently had a go at me when he discussed the abuse of the term epigenetics which, he claimed, ‘has become associated with obscurantism among biologists’. This is followed by a reference to a footnote which reads: ‘I am reminded of a satirical version of Occam’s Razor, which
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expressed in conduct.’ Such a definition—which McGrath describes as ‘typical of any Christian writer’—is what Dawkins, in reference to French postmodernists, calls ‘continental obscurantism’. Most of it describes the psychology of belief. The only clause of relevance to a scientist is ‘adequate evidence’, which raises the follow-up question
The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
by Christopher Hitchens · 14 Jun 2007 · 740pp · 236,681 words
time they fight against scientific theories of psychology and education. At each stage, they try to make the public forget their earlier obscurantism, in order that their present obscurantism may not be recognized for what it is. Let us note a few instances of irrationality among the clergy since the rise of
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Church to the fundamentalist Religious Right. Less obviously but still plausibly, in the light of modern scientific knowledge I think he would see through supernaturalist obscurantism. But of course, modesty would compel him to turn his T-shirt around: “Jesus for Atheists.” Cosmic Evidence From God: The Failed Hypothesis VICTOR STENGER
Revolution Française: Emmanuel Macron and the Quest to Reinvent a Nation
by Sophie Pedder · 20 Jun 2018 · 337pp · 101,440 words
stigmatizing. Entrenched by law in 1905, this principle was the product of a long anti-clerical struggle with the Catholic Church and the forces of obscurantism. It formed the basis for the French ban on the wearing of the burqa in public, and the headscarf (and other ‘conspicuous’ religious symbols) in
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, fiscal harmonization, and more. If this speech was more technical, its impulse was nonetheless political. Macron reminded his audience that the ‘sad passions’ inflamed by ‘obscurantism’ were being awakened across the continent. Europe’s leaders, by blaming Europe when things went wrong and failing to give it credit for success, had
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