I have refrained from participating in the thread on Pound and
anti-Semitism which has bee ngoing on for some weeks or months now because
it did not seem to me that people were interested in informing themselves on
the topic so much as they were concerned to vent their own settled views on
the matter.
        But let me recommend two very well informed and measured discussions
of the matter: Albert S. Lindemann,_ Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and
the Rise of the Jews_, Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1997; and William D.
Rubinstein, _The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies could not have Saved
mor Jews from the Nazis_, New York: Routledg 1997. These two books provide
an excellent survey of recent literature on anti_Semitism and the Holocaust
as well as offering their own analysis of the issue.
 
        As for Pound, I have forthcoming from Illinois UP _Pound in
Purgatory: From economic Radicalism to Anti-Semitism_. In that book I
carefully examine Pound unpublished letters and ephemeral journalism with a
view to gaining a better understanding of his economic opinions. Incidental
to that research I found a very clear shift on Pound's part from the casual
anti-Semitism of his class to the full-blown racism and conspiracy theory
evinced in the Rome broadcasts and the Agresti correspondence editeddby
Demetres Tryphonopoulos and me. There is little doubt that Pound's
preoccupation with economics and politics after 1933 was motivated by his
outrage at the Great Depression. But that outrage did not express itself as
anti-Semitism until he read an anti-Semitic article by William Pelley.
Ironically, the journal in which it appeard was sent to Pound by Louis
Zukofsky--as an example of the ludicrous exaggerations of extreme right-wing
American opinion. Unfortunately Pound was sufficiently impressed by Pelley's
article that he set William Drummond to research the "Jewish problem," and
also sought out allies of Pelley--most importantly the German-American
Gesellite and anti-Semite, Hugo Fack.
 
Leon Surette