Blood Inscriptions

Reviews / Votes

"Blood Inscriptions is a superb contribution to the growing literature on the blood libel in Europe in the modern era. The book is a tour de force of historical research and reasoning that leaves no stone unturned and merits a wide audience...Kieval's analysis sheds light on the inner workings of the conspiratorial mindset and demonstrates how people may not believe in cabals but nonetheless find them politically expedient." (Quest: Issues in Contemporary Jewish History) "Hillel Kieval's Blood Inscriptions examines the turn-of-the-century resurgence and decline of anti-Jewish murder libels...[and] sheds new light on the interplay between elite and non-elite knowledge in a new media environment and the role modern state institutions played in responding to and resisting social pressures." (Isis) "Kieval's cogent new book examines the sudden spate of trials propelled by ritual murder accusations between 1882 and 1902 in Central Europe. This work, the culmination of two decades of research, draws upon interrogation protocols, medical examination reports, trial records, press accounts, polemical tracts, apologetic responses, contemporary reappraisals, and other Czech, German, Hebrew, and Hungarian documents in archives across Europe, Israel, and the United States...Blood Inscriptions is a worthy addition to the extensive scholarship on these trials specifically and on ritual murder accusations more generally." (Central European History) "This long-awaited book brings a wealth of scholarship and sources in German, Czech, and Hungarian to English-speaking audiences, and offers a new argument for how antisemitism and anti-Jewish violence and exclusion are part and parcel of political liberalism and modern epistemologies of forensic science and criminology. While such trials might have collapsed epistemologically by WWI, Kieval highlights the persistence of anti-Jewish violence and discourses of Jewish criminality throughout the twentieth century until today." (Slavic Review) "Blood Inscriptions offers a nuanced and compelling assessment of how and why a medieval religious canard found a receptive home among rational, enlightened, and secular Europeans." (Robert Weinberg, Swarthmore College)