The Idiocy of Idealism

WARMLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO JEWISH SCHOLAR DR ROBERT EISLER 

LEVY, Oscar 

The Idiocy of Idealism 

London: William Hodge and Company, Ltd., 1940 

8vo., pale yellow cloth, lettered in red to spine; upper edge stained red; housed in the original blue, white and black printed dustwrapper (unclipped, 5s. net to front flap) featuring a wraparound quote from Bernard Shaw; pp. [viii], 9-152; a very good to near-fine copy, with slight shelf lean and one small black smudge to the edge of upper board; a couple of splash marks to the upper edge of the text block; mild pushing to spine tips with a couple of tiny spots to the prelims; otherwise very clean internally; the good dustwrapper with some rubbing and darkening along  folds and spine; heavier chipping and a few holes sometime restored, with two near-contemporary newspaper articles pasted to the front flap; another, loosely laid in, includes a statement, circled in red pencil, in which an English Reverend writes that the ensuing rain may act as an antidote to the poisonous bombs poured upon British soil. 

First UK edition, this copy warmly inscribed by Levy to the front free endpaper: “To Robert Eisler, the well-known author of “ΙΗΣΟϒΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕϒΣ” and many other interesting books, with the author’s compliments, Oscar Levy, Oxford, April 1941”. 

Oscar Levy (1867-1946) was a German Jewish Philosopher who studied medicine at Freiburg University and later settled in London, his magnum opus being a monumental authorised English translation of the works of Nietzsche, which appeared in 18 volumes between 1909 and 1913. As a scholar of Nietzsche, he devoted much of his time to distancing the philosopher from National Socialism. The present work argues that it is religious values which have spawned conflicts for generations, culminating of course in the Second World War, which was at the time raging across Europe, and which he refers to as the “present era of fanaticism and intolerance”. He therefore offers a series of cautionary thoughts which take as their subjects a series of idealists throughout the generations, as well as commenting on ideologies and ideologists which have led to revolutions, upheavals, and ultimately wars, including Oliver Cromwell, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Maximilien Robespierre. George Bernard Shaw, who had previously argued against Idealism as a dangerous illusion and hindrance to human progress, fervently endorsed Levy’s claims, hailing the book as “critique of Dictators and Saviours”. 

This copy is particularly notable for including an inscription by Levy to the Austrian Jewish polymath Robert Eisler (1882 - 1949). Eisler studied Economics and Art History at the University of Vienna, and served in WWI as an officer in the 59th Erzherzog Rainer Infantry Regiment. In 1929, after studying the  Slavonic Josephus manuscript, he published ΙΗΣΟϒΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕϒΣ (Jesus, the King Who Did Not Reign), referenced here by Levy, which argued for a new narrative of Jesus’s ministry and death and depicted him as a revolutionary rising up against the Roman government. In 1938 Eisler was due to take up a post at the University of Oxford, but was subsequently arrested and sent to Dachau concentration camp. He was later transferred to  Buchenwald, where he suffered solitary confinement and developed heart disease. Upon his release he travelled to the UK, and it is during this time that the present book would have been gifted. 1941 would have been a difficult time for the two scholars, both in the later years of their life and Eisler suffering from illness and injury sustained during his time in the camps, but the familiarity in the inscription highlights the deep respect and the mutual interest which would have existed between these two intellectuals at the time of publication. 

A fascinating association copy between two German/Austrian Jewish émigré scholars, both living in England during the years of the Second World War.