"I marvel at Michael Hagemeister’s capacity to shed light on the darkest, the most consequential of all conspiratorial works of the modern age. He knows so well how to make sense of the resonance of nonsense, its persuasiveness and troubling persistence."
Steven J. Zipperstein
, Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History at Stanford University, USA, and author of Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History
"This collection of studies by the intellectual historian Michael Hagemeister sheds penetrating light on the many puzzles and myths surrounding The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which since its first publication in Russia in 1903 has become a staple of antisemitic and conspirological discourse worldwide. Each of his articles, based on extensive archival research and displaying an enviable mastery of the vast polemical and scholarly literature devoted to the notorious forgery, deals with a different aspect of the Protocols: these range from when and by whom they were produced, what happened at the famous Bern trial in the 1930s, to the place of the document in apocalyptic speculations in today’s Russia. In particular, Hagemeister shows that the theory favored by Norman Cohn and many others, according to which the Protocols were created by the Tsarist secret police, is deeply flawed, and the biography of Sergei Nilus, a key early editor and publisher of the Protocols, has been vastly distorted in recent fictional and other treatments. Hagemeister’s book is a significant contribution and will be of great interest to scholars in many fields."
Henryk Baran, Professor of Slavic Literature at the University at Albany, SUNY, USA
"Michael Hagemeister is certainly the best specialist on the Russian and German history of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the most famous forgery in Western history. But, as the studies gathered in this book show, he has also explored the field of the international circulation of the forgery and analysed its various political uses. This historian and philologist, author of a large number of works of exceptional rigour and erudition, has done pioneering work in showing that, concerning the origins and worldwide dissemination of the Protocols, the elementary norms of historical research had been ignored in favour of a multitude of fictional accounts, constructed from 1921 onwards on the basis of the recollections of various supposed witnesses, many of whom were false witnesses. Through his unparalleled research on the best- and long-selling conspiracy and apocalyptic literature, based on a demystifying critique of carefully contextualised texts and documents, Michael Hagemeister has brilliantly contributed to a scientific history of modern political myths and utopias."
Pierre-André Taguieff, philosopher and historian of ideas, Director of Research at the CNRS, France, and author of Les Protocoles des Sages de Sion: Faux et usages d’un faux
"[Hagemeister] presents in a matter-of-fact and sober way what can be said about [The Protocols] without mystifying the text or attributing things to it that are not in it but are attached to it through the history of its impact and reception."
Till Kinzel, in IFB [translated from German]
"Hagemeister’s essays show how painstaking the work of the historian – tracking down archival documents, uncovering sources, deconstructing testimonies – often is, and how rewarding it can be because it allows one to correct long-lived myths such as the one about the origins of Protocols. His book therefore makes an implicit but nevertheless strong case for giving historical research and its methods a weight voice in the scholarly discourse about conspiracy theories. That is not the case at the moment because the research of conspiracy theories is currently more concerned with quantitative studies about who is a conspiracy theorist and what character traits this person has. Without historical research, the study of conspiracy theories lacks a historical foundation. However, the fact that the conspiracy myth surrounding the Protocols can still be conjured today shows how immune conspiracy thinking is to facts."
Claus Oberhauser, Excerpt from American Book Review, Volume 45, Number 1, Spring 2024, pp.41-44 (Review)
“Throughout the book, Hagemeister dispels several myths surrounding the Protocols, which have been perpetuated over the last hundred years by everyone, regardless of their opinion of the text.”
“Hagemeister's book is not only relevant because the Protocols continue to be read [...]: The history of the Protocols shows that, given the current debate about fake news and disinformation, we should not place our hopes in fact-checking.”
“Hagemeister's book should be required reading for anyone interested in the Protocols.”
Michael Butter, Excerpts from Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 72 (2024), 3, pp. 504-506.
