Long form article-thread on Christopher Clark's book on German missionary activity among Jews and Clark's theories for the transformation of that "eschatology" from the days of the Reformation up until the Third Reich or "How German Christians go from 'The Jews are our salvation' to the 'Jews are our misfortune"

One of the pre-occupations of ecclesiastical - but also merchant and even noble - elites in Germany in the 17th and 18th centuries was the conversion of the Jews. Christopher Clark has explored this subject in detail and – in his view - this was not a simple issue of practicality.

The conversion of the Jews was understood in “eschatological terms”, as this conversion was apart of the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. One primary and early example of this studied by Clark was the Institutum Judaicum founded by Johann Heinrich Callenberg in 1728 which sought to evangelize the Jews but also to transform their culture and social ethics. Missions like these were not particularly successful (leading to a small amount of conversions, and even the successful conversions were – in some cases - just Jews (and even some poor people impersonating Jews) using the mission as a way to find food or employment), but furthermore, this specific institute and these missionary efforts continued on because the eschatological mission was seen as essential for promoting a Christian worldview and a Christian mission for the state. This excerpt from Clark summarizes this well, citing another German theologian by the name of Phillip Jakob Spener

"If we look at Holy Scripture, we need not doubt that God has promised a better state of the Church on Earth. We have, above all, the heartfelt prophecy of St Paul and the mystery revealed to him (Romans, XI: 25, 26), of how Israel shall become blessed after the fullness of the heathens shall be gone in, so that a great part, if not all, of the hitherto stubborn Jews shall be converted to the Lord"
Spener was convinced that the stubbornness of the Jews was driven by Christian imperfection and the unwillingness of Christians to live up to the teachings or standards of Christ. Hence, the conversion of the Jews was not only related to a movement of history or even an “end of history” or ”end of days” but was related to spiritual and temporal, political and social reform. Spener writes:

"If the Jews could be brought as a whole to a different way of life from that of trading and peddling which feeds them nowadays [Spener wrote in the early 1680s], I would be in favour of such a step. For this way of life requires that the mind be preoccupied with constant worries, so that they can hardly afford the leisure of scrutinizing themselves"

Walter White - head of NAACP from 1929-1955 - on relationship between lynching in the American south and evangelicalism, or at least culture and ritual around evangelicalism/Pentecostalism (from Wood's "Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940")

Of course, evangelical Christianity - especially in the 19th century - had extremely egalitarian social/political implications. But what White is pointing to here is more of its culture and rituals, how that seeped into the practices of the type of people who engaged in lynching

A good excerpt from the beginning of a lesser known Lassiter essay (that I didn't know existed) on Cobb county GA, focusing on this larger issue of the suburbanite base of GOP, but specifically how this applied to Gingrich's "contract with America" GOP insurgency in the mid 90's.

https://twitter.com/ObamaGarak/status/1562673497444196352

For those interested in this subject, but too young to remember this or not familiar with recent American history, while there is certainly continuity between current day Con Inc/GOP and the "new right" insurgencies of the 60's/70's,

Ive tweeted about this subject a ton, but it's still something that few understand. Might be another decade until all the work by Matthew Lassiter, Kari Fredrickson, Joseph Crespino, and even Kevin Kruse works its way into the general understanding of rise of the GOP in US south

https://twitter.com/ObamaGarak/status/1562673497444196352

Its slightly different for the north/northeast, there you can actually make the argument that the democratic party was - at least among its most fervent supporters - was very suburbanite/upper middle class.

Some lesser known radical ideas that came out one of the first radical GOP conventions in SC (1868), including reforms to marriage/divorce law, women's/universal suffrage, outlawing dueling, banning language including words like "yankee"/"n-gger", and banning poverty/crime, lol. Out of all these, the suffrage stuff, dueling, and the marriage/divorce stuff were the only ones.that made Thor way into SC law (pretty sure). The other stuff - as Poole notes quoting Francis Butler Simkins - was "tabled for later".

Brief excerpt from Corey Robin on the issue of "spousal rape", how it fits into conservative politics in US, the defense of the sanctity of marriage, as well as the defense of "privilege" and subordinate classes/groups.

https://twitter.com/WolfgangHutter2/status/1518622820967882752

Im not aware of any other studies that cover this topic. If anyone is aware of anything that covers this specific issue or how it fits into the history of marriage, "patriarchy", and laws/state intrusion relating to these issues, I would love a recommendation.

With reagrds to that first sentence, your saying that is what's happening or what should happen? I totally agreee(obviously) but what im really referring to, to be more specific, is this thesis that traditional notions of capitalism have been eclipsed by interests of "regime".

https://twitter.com/PoastSellars/status/1518617979960893440

Things like twitter are an extension of a regime that is not motivated by things like "maximization of profit". Certainly, this type of argument has alot of truth as the "state", for lack of a better term,

That time that Booker T. Washington was recruited by the German empire to build a "Tuskegee Institute" in Togo, a colony controlled by the German's in sub-Saharan Africa, in order to promote better and more efficient practices of cotton growing among the natives.

Inherently fascinating subject matter. I have had my eye on this book for probably five years now, but have never puled the proverbial trigger and actually opened it.

An extremely good summary of Nolte's thesis for the "European Civil War".

I sub tweeted an extended thread I did awhile back on an older Nolte essay on the German right, specifically on this question of the political categorization of Hitler and National Socialism.

https://twitter.com/WolfgangHutter2/status/1406301170973483009

I think Nolte's opinion on Hitler and the German National Socialists did change since that essay was written in mid to late 60's. However there was also a lot of it that carried over into "The European Civil War".

The literature/memoirs of Spanish Civil War framed in existential/totalizing terms by writers on both the left and right, an extension of a larger "Euro civil War" between revolution/counter-revolution, transcendence/resistance to transcendence (Traverso, "Fire and Blood"). Wasn't familiar with many of the writers cited in that excerpt, specifically Massis, Serrano, Claudel, and Ramos (was familiar with Brasillach and Rochelle). If anybody has an e-copy of that Massis book, or knows where i can find it, Id appreciate your time/help.

Listening to audiobook for "The Specter of War" and was introduced to Georgi Dimitrov, someone who I was not super aware of.

(Im new to this guy, so if you have any hot takes on him, I would be curious to hear them.)
britannica.com/biography/Geor… An interesting figure, would suggest you read into him if you want a better understanding of inter-war period and the "popular front" variant of "anti-Fascism", "Comintern", internationalism, etc.

Haslam's book mentioned a weird detail about him that made me do a double take.

A statistical breakdown of the class, socio-economic, and occupational background for members of the second Ku Klux Klan (mid 1910's to mid 1920's, I beleive this is based entirely on Athens, GA chapter). These charts, statistical breakdowns, and excerpts come from MacLean's "Behind the Mask of Chivalry", by far the best social history produced on the "second KKK". MacLean has published at least one other book that I thought was awful ("Democracy in Chains")

I don't think I've ever highlighted these two books which are very important for understanding the growth of the post-WWII American led world order and the Cold War in general (and how these two affected American domestic politics and the creation of a more "open society" in US) I haven't read the second one, but had to read the Dudziak book for school and it was quite enlightening and answered alot of unanswered questions I had about the nature of the American empire). The authors theses are basically the same, the global context of the Cold War

This is a really interesting primary source document. In the early 90's, Buchanan and, I think, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Ben Wattenberg, and Charles Krauthammer participated in a printed foreign policy roundtable debate on the future of American foreign policy at end of the Cold War. It was printed in "National Interest" magazine, a foreign policy publication that, I think, took more of a "realist" slant, even though it also had a number of early "neocons" associated with it. I beleive Buchanan and Kirkpatrick were on the more non-interventionist side

I thought of a really good question that makes me wish I knew a resident left wing American historian on this part of twitter I could ask, because I am genuinely curious. Was just listening to a left wing history podcaster and he was talking about Reconstruction and how political liberalism impeded on ability of GOP to do what needed to be done in order to fully "emancipate" ex-slaves and broadly change south for the positive (mass social engineering, redistribution of property/political power, full suffrage). However, in the same breath

Got sucked into Stoddard's book on "French Revolution in San Domingo" yesterday, forgot how good it was. Some really interesting excerpts on race/slavery in pre-revolutionary "San Domingo". One of my hyper-specific areas of focus within modern history is being able to identify the moment, especially in 17th/18th century, where ideas about race manifest and what are the circumstances for this manifestation? A justification? Natural? Materially/economically motivated?

This looks like it could be a great read for anyone interested in modern Africa, decolonization, Euro imperial involvement and defense of its settlers and material interests, plus American/English involvement in decolonization. Not really familiar with this specific episode, but have read about it in passing in larger histories related to the subject. Othen wrote a book called "Franco's International Brigades", which is in my top three fav histories of Spanish CW. I remember reading that there were a number of American conservatives/anti-communists

Does anybody have any hot takes on Bork? I am only 30, so I wasn't actually involved with any politics (conservative or otherwise) when he was actually relevant or alive. But I have been watching these old 'Think Tank" public access episodes all day and watched one with him and its jarring how, even 20 to 30 years ago, you could be way to the right of any mainstream position now and still be allowed to work at "AEI". Bork comes off to me, at times, to almost be a rightist critic of the American project itself, socially, culturally, and politically.

I think sometime las week I had mentioned I found an Ernst Nolte essay in a book I have entitled "The European Right: A Historical Profile". I noted that this was noteworthy because Nolte only had a small number of his writings translated to English, so finding one that I have never seen discussed, was quite exciting. Within the specific essay which analyses the history of the German right-wing, there was one excerpt in particular I wanted to upload where Nolte discusses his feelings on whether or not Nazism was a "party of the right'.

A poster depicting Hitler as the puppet of big business (Doesn't look like there is a date anywhere on the image). Found this in a book I was looking at by Henry Ashby Turner entitled "German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler". I was thinking about starting it soon. Of course, Hitler as a "tool of domestic German capital and heavy industry" is an argument that is not taken super seriously,

This is the newest overview/synthesis on modern Germany from Helmut Smith (who has written at least one really good book, "The Butcher's Tale"). I am going to try and look it over and see if it is good or not and do a thread or write an actual long form review on it. I have not read many overviews of modern Germany that I think are very good (other than more focused ones on imperial Germany or just the 19th cent. Hopefully this one might be worth reading for anyone who wants to find a good place to start on modern Germany .