David Olster

Margins and Metropolis: Authority Across the Byzantine Empire

that ushers in the next chapter on high modernism, which explores this period’s ethnographic literature and its operative role in the development of both the trope of Unheimlichkeit and the shifting identity politics of fin-de-siècle Europe. Finally, the book’s epilogue is devoted to explaining Zilcosky’s theorization of a type of “uncanny violence” (165), or how, with the rise of both psychoanalytical theory and cosmopolitan modernity, the Western world has tended to perceive and express literary globalization through psychological notions of self and other. By moving into the present, Zilcosky further cements the trajectory of his initial historicization of the birth of the concept of the uncanny and its current and continued relevance to our understanding of cultural difference and, in effect, our cultural fears, manifested in outright violence. As this review is intended to suggest, this book is a major achievement in terms of its methodology and large scope. With its thoughtful attention to a litany of historical references and both real and imagined geographical encounters, Zilcosky’s book shows a breadth of study that is vital to comparative literature and cultural studies, as well as to their multidisciplinary value.

Unrivalled Influence: Women and Empire in Byzantium

Unrivalled Influence: Women and Empire in Byzantium is the second volume of Judith Herrin’s collected scholarship, and like the first, Margins and Metropolis: Authority across the Byzantine Empire,...

A Review of “Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism”

historians’ obsession with Bonaparte’s rise to power rather than with those who attempted to provide stability through republican centrist politics. The principal argument of the book is that the years from 1794 to 1804 permanently changed French politics in the sense that they were transformed from classical to modern republicanism. Jainchill makes the case that the experiences of the first five years of the French Revolution were taken by the men of the Thermidorian Reaction and Directory and reconceptualized into modern politics. These were years of rebuilding after the devastation of the Terror. Jainchill focuses on a group of journalists, intellectuals, and politicians, a coterie that formed a “republican center” (2), a nucleus of liberal opposition to Bonaparte. This group was composed of the liberal intellectuals Benjamin Constant and Germaine de Staël, in addition to revolutionary politicians such as Pierre Claude-François Daunou, LouisMarie de La Révellière-Lépeaux, and Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès. Jainchill points out that classical republicanism dominated post-Terror politics, a fact that was neglected by previous historians of the French Revolution. The author sees the years from 1799 to 1804 as crucial in the transition from “classical to modern republicanism” (11). He would like to change our understanding of the beginnings and nature of French liberalism. According to Jainchill, the majority of historians have misunderstood the politics of the post-Terror years. He claims that previous writers about French liberalism, including François Furet and his student Marcel Gauchet, in particular, maintained that French liberalism was a reaction against Rousseau’s general will as manifested in Jacobinism and the Terror. For his part, Jainchill contests this notion, positing that early nineteenth-century French liberalism was a response to life under Bonaparte’s authoritarian regime. Furthermore, Jainchill maintains that existing literature fails to investigate the contemporary origins of an emerging French liberalism. Jainchill’s work builds on previous studies of the post-Terror era by James Livesay, Bernard Gainot, Pierre Serna, and Howard Brown. However, unlike Livesay, Jainchill interprets the politics of the period as liberal-authoritarian in nature rather than as democratic. Similar to Brown, Jainchill emphasizes the importance of periodization: for Brown, the breakdown is 1795–1802, whereas for Jainchill, the crucial years are 1794–1804. Both authors reject the traditional Brumarian divide of 1799. Reimagining Politics after the Terror is a highly specialized and scholarly monograph intended for an audience of specialists in French Revolutionary politics, political theorists, and graduate students.