Not as bad as the French

This is a long book, but its argument can be shortly stated. Anthony Julius believes that anti-Semitism is a persistent and influential theme in English history, which is all the more dangerous for being unacknowledged by most anti-Semites and concealed behind a facade of complex, subtle and hypocritical social convention.

He sustains the argument over nearly 600 pages of densely annotated text, in a book which is in equal measure wonderful and infuriating. It is immensely learned. It is thorough. Its patient accumulation of detail challenges conventional English images of their own society. Much of the analysis is observant and shrewd. But much of it is also laboured, sanctimonious and lacking in any real sense of proportion. Julius is too honest a writer and too good an advocate to ignore the counter-arguments. But having acknowledged them, he is far too ready to brush them aside.

Julius defines anti-Semitism as meaning hostility to Jews without any rational basis.