Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters » (New Edition)

Louis Begley is a bestselling novelist and a lawyer who retired after a 45-year career as partner in a prominent law firm. His fiction includes Wartime Lies, About Schmidt, and Matters of Honor.

From the prize-winning author of Wartime Lies, an anatomy of the infamous prosecution of a Jewish officer attached to the French Army's General Staff, with profound implications for our own time.

The New York Times - Ruth Scurr

Beyond being a clear introduction to the historical, legal, cultural and literary ramifications of the Dreyfus Affair, this book is a call to arms to contemporary creative writers to address the damage done to "the fabric of American society by the crimes and abuses of the Bush administration committed in the course of its pursuit of the war on terror." Begley eagerly awaits the emergence of America's Zola or Proust, to probe courageously the wounds of deep political division in great fiction. "Once again it is up to us poets to nail the guilty to the eternal pillory," Zola wrote to Dreyfus's wife. Begley argues that that time has come again.

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

1 "If they haven't been ordered to convict him, he will be acquitted this evening" 1

2 "The past is never dead" 47

3 "What do you care if that Jew stays on Devil's Island?" 83

4 "The truth marches on and nothing will stop it" 125

5 "Dreyfus was rehabilitated, Picquart became minister of war, and nobody said boo" 187

Cast of Characters 205

Chronology 215

Notes 229

Index 239