“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
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.