Studies of the Jewish experience among peoples with whom they live share some similarities with the usual histories of anti-Semitism, but also some differences. When the focus is on anti-Semitism, Jewish history appears as a record of unmitigated hostility against the Jewish people and of passivity on their part. However, as Werner J. Cahnman demonstrates in this posthumous volume, Jewish-Gentile relations are far more complex. There is a long history of mutual contacts, positive as well as antagonistic, even if conflict continues to require particular attention.

Cahnman's approach,...

This history of post-Emancipation German Jewry and of the Holocaust aftermath has received considerable scholarly attention. The study of Jewish life in Germany in the 1930s and the migration impelled by the Nazi period has, on the other hand, been comparatively neglected. The work of Werner J. Cahnman (1902-1980) goes a long way toward filling this gap.

Cahnman's examination of -the Jewish people that dwells among the nations- is focused on Germany because it was the country -where in modern times the symbiosis . . . has been most intimate and it also has been the country where...

This collection of selected essays by Werner J. Cahnman brings together out of scattered dispersion his writings about Max Weber, Ferdinand Toennies, and historical sociology. The great theoretical range and depth of his intellect and mastery of sociological thinking is apparent as he discusses the impact of romanticism on modern thought, and how Weber and Toennies both analysed and reacted to modernity.

Cahnman places Weber (1864-1920), the dominant figure in twentieth-century sociology, in the midst of the methodological controversies so characteristic of contemporary social...