This groundbreaking book focuses on Alfred Dreyfus the man, with emphasis
placed on his own writings, including his recently published prison workbooks
and his letters to his wife Lucie. Through close reading of these documents,
a much more sensitive, intellectual and Jewish man is revealed than was
previously suspected. He and Lucie, through their family connections and
mutual loyalty, were interested in and supported the artistic, scientifi c,
philosophical and historical movements that formed their Parisian milieu. But
as an Alsatian Jew, Alfred was also critical of many aspects of technological
and ideological developments, making his mentality one of skepticism as
well as idealism. Norman Simms addresses the way Dreyfus perceived the
world, challenged many of its assumptions and contextualized it in the
style of a rabbinical midrash, a process that created what Alfred called a
"phantasmagoria" of the Affair that bears his name, and also interprets
the man, his milieu and his mentality in the style of a midrash, a creative,
transformative reading.