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  • The Dreyfus Affair

  • The Scandal That Tore France in Two
  • Written by: Piers Paul Read
  • Narrated by: David Pevsner
  • Length: 16 hrs and 40 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (5 ratings)

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The Dreyfus Affair

Written by: Piers Paul Read
Narrated by: David Pevsner
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Publisher's Summary

July 20, 1894: The German Military Attache in Paris, Colonel Maximillien von Schwarzkoppen received a visit from a seedy-looking middle-aged Frenchman who would not give his name. He told Schwarzkoppen that he was a French army officer serving on the General Staff; that he was in desperate need of money; and was therefore prepared to sell military secrets to the Germans.

Captain Alfred Dreyfus, then aged 35, was a high-flying career artillery officer. Shy, reserved, sometimes awkward, but intelligent and ambitious, Dreyfus had everything he might have hoped for: a wife, two enchanting children, plenty of money, and a post on the General Staff. However, Dreyfus' rise in the army had not made him friends. Many of them came from the impoverished Catholic aristocracy and disliked Dreyfus because he was rich, bourgeois and, above all, a Jew.

On October 13, Captain Dreyfus was summoned by the General de Boisdeffre to the Ministry of War. Despite minimal evidence against him he was placed under arrest for the crime of high treason. Not long afterward Dreyfus was incarcerated on Devil's Island.

But how did an innocent man come to be convicted? And why was he kept locked up for so long?

The Dreyfus Affair uniquely combines a fast-moving mystery story with a snapshot of France at a moment of great social flux and cultural richness - the Belle Epoque, the Impressionists, novelists such as Flaubert, Zola, the Goncourts, Proust. It is a key to an understanding of later history; the Holocaust and Zionism: the virulent anti-Semitism of the anti-Dreyfusards and the decision that the Jews must have a state of their own.

©2012 Piers Paul Read (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

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Excellent resource

The Dreyfus Affair is a pivotal moment in French, European, secular, and Jewish history but is often overlooked. This book goes into great detail about what happened, why, and how it affected the politics of the Third Republic. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about this fascinating and important time in the evolution of both France and the Jewish identity.

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Filled in some history gaps

After hearing ‘the Dreyfus Affair’ referred to in multiple non-fiction and historical fiction books, I figured I needed to know what it was! This book filled in that gap. I might have got more out of it if I understood more about the French political situation at the time, though it still made sense. Might listen to it again in a few years

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