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Reviews of Books
womb on Ash Wednesday 1394, embracing a simulacrum of the Holy Cross! Russell's text sets before us
not a preordained culture hero but the third son of an
insignificant king who ruled a poverty-struck land.
Through self-actualization and a supreme sense of
self-worth, Henry overcame the handicap of his birth
order and limited resources. The prince, we learn, was
driven by a quest for personal fame and the need to
prop up his finances. He took Ceuta (1415), failed in a
major effort against the Canaries (1424), suffered a
debacle at Tangier (1437), conquered A1ca~er-Ceguer
(1458), and sent explorers to Africa in the 1430s
and 1440s for the landings that led to trade and
rapine.
These expansionist activities should not be classified
as Renaissance preoccupations, since the author's goal
in this study is "to reclaim Prince Henry and his
achievements for the Middle Ages" (p. 12). Dom
Henrique's ambitions are shown to be not that different from the ideological preoccupations of his contemporaries, save that he persisted whereas, when others
matured, they settled for local aspirations. One underestimated motivation in Henry's life is the key role
astrology played in setting out his path. His horoscope
cast him as a man with a great destiny, and he followed
his star. It is hard to categorize this interest as strictly
medieval, however, since an astrologer similarly
guided President Ronald Reagan, as his wife admits. It
might be better, therefore, to consign ongoing arguments over periodization to history's dustbin.
Dom Henrique is presented in this multilayered text
as a curious layman who sought to understand his
world through the window of aristocratic values. He
was the wealthiest magnate in Portugal, but he died, as
he lived, in substantial debt. Despite his trading proclivities, he was often willing to exacerbate his relations with Mricans by crusading as a soldier of the
Church Militant. Prince Henry cited with approval
Christ's declaration that he came to bring not peace
but a sword.
The sporadic voyages dedicated to exploration depended upon a lack of distractions, suddenly available
funding, and the prince's reputation, which attracted
navigators. Henry is shown not to be a Portuguese
patriot, since he would hire anyone-save a Castilian-to get a job done. Ca'da Mosto, his greatest
explorer, was a Venetian. The ships brought back
ivory, gold, cotton cloths, and black slaves. Henry's
explorers demonstrated, sinisterly, that instead of relying on a dribble from trans-Saharan caravan routes
controlled by Muslims, captives in vast quantities could
be transported on long sea voyages. Even when
stripped of the barnacles of myth, the prince's ships
made a substantial contribution to Europe's knowledge and taught it how to exploit Mrica's resources.
Once begun, Prince Henry's cursed inheritance lives
on.
This certainly must be rated the best volume about
the man and his times. In addition to celebrating this
masterful achievement, one must also admire Russell's
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
openness in pointing out that the painting of the figure
in the well-known black cartwheel hat that dominates
the dust jacket quite possibly started its career as a
portrait of someone else.
MARVIN LUNENFELD
State University of New York,
Fredonia
LARS M. ANDERSSON. En jude ar en jude ar en
jude . .. : Representationen av 'juden" i svensk skamtpress omkring 1900-1930. [A Jew is a Jew is a Jew ... :
Representations of "Jews" in the Swedish Humor
Press ca. 1900-1930.] Lund, Sweden: Nordic Academic
Press. 2000. Pp. 622.
Within a single year (1999-2000), three Swedish doctoral dissertations were published on topics pertaining
to Swedish anti-Semitism past and present. Lena Berggren's Nationell Upp/ysning: Drag i den svenska antisemitismens idehistoria [National Enlightenment: Aspects of the Ideological History of Swedish AntiSemitism] (1999) focuses on racially based antiSemitism found not only in fringe movements but
within established political parties in the period between the world wars. Henrik Bachner's Aterkomsten:
Antisemitism i Sverige efter 1945 [The Return: AntiSemitism in Sweden after 1945] (1999) analyzes the
manner in which anti-Zionism and a pro-Palestinian
stance have served to camouflage underlying antiSemitic sentiment in the postwar period. Lars M.
Andersson's magnum opus differs from the work of his
immediate predecessors in that Andersson does not
emphasize the overtly political or ideological dimensions of Swedish anti-Semitism but rather its manifestation in commonplace, everyday attitudes presumed
to be shared by large segments of the population.
Andersson has chosen humor magazines, widely
distributed during the first decades of the twentieth
century, to explore this thesis, arguing that the medium
of popular entertainment may provide insight into
prevailing norms and values that are otherwise difficult
to document. He has examined in detail the entire
publication runs of fourteen humor periodicals, selected to provide a representative geographic and
ideological cross-section during the designated time
period. His study demonstrates conclusively that cartoons and jokes caricaturing Jews-many of them to
contemporary eyes crudely anti-Semitic-were a common feature in the humor press regardless of place of
publication or political orientation, a staple element
cultivated by editors and illustrators and apparently
appreciated by readers, who sometimes sent in "Jewish
stories" of their own. The construction of a relatively
consistently portrayed Jewish "other" contributed, in
turn, to the creation of a norm for "Swedishness" that
was a significant feature of the modernization process
and an implicit underpinning of the welfare state.
In the introduction, Andersson provides a thorough
overview of the history of anti-Semitism, both in
Sweden and internationally. He posits that the phe-
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Europe: Early Modern and Modern
nomenon has been under-recognized in Sweden, in
part because the term itself has been defined too
narrowly to encompass only deliberate and openly
acknowledged anti-Jewish bias. The empirical portion
of the dissertation is divided into three lengthy sections. The first analyzes the visual and linguistic codes
marking a figure as "Jewish" (here and elsewhere, the
use of quotes distinguishes the representational "Jew"
from actual Jewish individuals), with particular attention to the prominent nose shaped like the number six
and the palms-up gesture associated with greed. Many
cartoons vary the theme that assimilation is impossible
due to the "Jew's" divergent appearance. The second
section focuses on "Jewish" attitudes toward religion
and money. Anti-Judaism is directly connected to
racially based anti-Semitism by representing biblical
figures as possessing typically "Jewish" traits, notably
mendacity, moral indifference, and the worship of
Mammon. The image of the "Jew" as profit-mongering
capitalist is especially notable in the left-leaning press
of the workers' movement.
In the third section, Andersson scrutinizes the response of the humor press to an actual historical
phenomenon, the gradual assimilation of the SwedishJewish population (which during this period numbered
only about 7,000), and the rise to prominence of
individual Jews in fields that included publishing,
academia, and the visual arts as well as various mercantile professions. Influential, established Jews, or
those so identified, were virtually always caricatured as
"Jewish" in appearance and demeanor, a particularly
startling revelation with regard to the explorer and
politician Sven Hedin, whose heritage was only onesixteenth Jewish and who himself had fascist sympathies.
Andersson has produced not only a groundbreaking
study but one that leaves little room for future digging;
this is a definitive work. By highlighting stereotypes
that ordinary Swedes found amusing, Andersson reveals the prevalence of anti-Semitism during a period
of profound social change. Although not of the virulent variety that led to the Final Solution, the pervasiveness of this casual, everyday anti-Semitism across a
wide social and political spectrum contradicts a Swedish self-image of openmindedness and tolerance. The
topic should be of interest outside Sweden as well; an
English-language summary is provided. It is nevertheless unfortunate that the book is so long: 600 oversized
pages, each set in double columns and a microscopic
font, a format guaranteed to produce eyestrain.
Printed in the usual manner, the text would have run to
at least 1,500 pages and several volumes; the third
chapter, on representations of actual Swedish Jews,
falls somewhat outside the parameters of the investigation and could, in fact, easily have been published as
a separate book. Reducing the sheer number of images
analyzed in detail (approximately 250 are both repro-
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
287
duced and discussed) would have made the study more
focused and accessible.
ROCHELLE WRIGHT
University of Illinois
KIRSI SIREN. Suuresta suvusta pieneen perheeseen: Itasuomalainen perhe 1700-1uvulla. [From Joint Family to
Nuclear Family: The Family in Eastern Finland in the
Eighteenth Century]. (Bibliotheca Historica, number
38.) Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura. 1999. Pp.
259.
ELINA WARIS. Yksissa leivissa: Ruokolahtelainen perhelaitos ja yhteisollinen toiminta 1750-1850 [Together as
One: Extended Families and Collective Labour in
Ruokolahti, 1750-1850]. (Bibliotheca Historica, number 48.) Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura. 1999.
Pp. 248.
When John Hajnal, in the 1960s, presented his hypothesis about the demographic mechanisms of preindustrial Europe, an imaginary "Hajnal line" based on the
age at marriage of women with a magic cut -off point at
twenty-three could hardly be visualized. The use of a
combination of age at marriage and household composition, based on the Laslett-Hammell classification
system, created the image of a simple Eastern and
Western Europe in the past. Time and empirical
findings have made these simplistic divisions redundant. While most scholars engaging in research connected with family and household issues have moved
on to create new agendas, the publisher of two doctoral theses in Finland states that "the international
discussion" (i.e. the Laslett-Hammell classification system and the Hajnal line) have finally reached Finnish
research.
The study by Elina Waris focuses on the economic
and legal basis for the complex household groups in an
eastern Finnish parish during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the way labor could be added and
discarded depending on need. She makes good use of
a combination of sources to show how the judicial
system was utilized for economic purposes and how
interfamilial relations fitted in with the system. Assets
were transferred through adoption, wills, or delayed
property division. The overruling aim was to maximize
the use of ecological resources, and when the agrarian
sector declined, the opportunities offered by St. Petersburg came into focus. Waris claims that because a
large work group had been the hallmark of economic
security, the shift toward smaller families was slow.
The effort to force a society where sharing a farm
did not necessarily mean sharing a building and sharing a building did not necessarily mean sharing meals
into the Laslett-Hammell household classification system is not altogether a success, and the author also
reveals some staggering lacunae in her knowledge of
comparative Nordic research. With these exceptions,
the book contains interesting information and is quite
a good read.
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