France and the Dreyfus Affair: A Documentary History

Michael Burns

gush 2019 · Plunkett Lake Press

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The unjust conviction of French Jewish Captain Alfred Dreyfus on charges of treason started the Dreyfus affair, a major event in European anti-Semitism. “This documentary history is designed to introduce the broad outlines and significant legacies of the Dreyfus affair, from the captain’s arrest in 1894 to the 1998 centennial of J’Accuse, Émile Zola’s scathing indictment of the French military... This volume, fashioned for a weeklong assignment in a college course, reproduces the affair’s most celebrated texts, as well as less familiar, but no less telling, documents. Presented as a chronological narrative, it charts Captain Dreyfus’s case as it unfolded in time, and summarizes the major issues and debates that have survived for the past century.” (From the preface by Michael Burns)

“A fresh and compelling study of the turn of the century affair in a concise and readable book... A fine compilation of well-chosen documents and lucid analysis... Beyond making this frequently told tale come to life once again (I literally could not put the book down), Burns has given it historical and cultural context.” — Donna F. Ryan, Gallaudet University

“Michael Burns’s volume is imaginatively written, with a keen eye to the drama and desperation of the Dreyfus affair. Its special strength is its learned attention to the political, military, and cultural contexts. Weaving the author’s own commentary together with documents from the period, this volume is a splendid guide to one of the most important historical landmarks of our time.” — Michael R. Marrus, University of Toronto

“In both his analysis and his choice of documents, Michael Burns has brilliantly captured all the complexity and the passion of the Dreyfus affair. I salute his achievement.” — Benjamin F. Martin, Louisiana State University

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Born in New York in 1947, Michael Burns grew up in Los Angeles, where he worked in the motion picture and television industry for nearly twenty years. He graduated from UCLA and received a PhD in Modern European History from Yale University in 1981. He is Professor Emeritus at Mount Holyoke College and has taught at Yale and the École des Hautes Études.

Besides France and the Dreyfus Affair: A Documentary History, his publications include Rural Society and French Politics: Boulangism and the Dreyfus Affair; a revision of Geoffrey Barraclough’s Main Trends in History; andDreyfus: A Family Affair from the French Revolution to the Holocaust, which was awarded the Prix Bernard Lecache of the International League against Racism and Antisemitism. Recipient of Rockefeller, Fulbright, and Tocqueville fellowships, he has been advisory editor for the Blackwell series New Perspectives on the Past and forFrance and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History. He is a former fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.