By Dik van Arkel

Antisemitism is an exceptional historical phenomenon. Its history goes back at least 2000 years and has manifested itself in many countries and in a wide range of societies. However, it is not a universal phenomenon. Many countries have no tradition of anti-Semitism and even in those where anti-Semitism periodically raises its head, there have been long periods where it appears to have lain dormant. But it has never altogether disappeared, and all the large-scale social changes of the past two millennia have given it extra impetus. This definitive study tackles the complex roots and manifestations of anti-Semitism over the centuries, tracing the rise of anti-Jewish stereotypes and the circumstances in which racial prejudice may have tragic consequences. This book will quickly become a classic text for students and researchers in this persistent and worldwide prejudice.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009. 593p.

Edited by David Lyon

Once, the word “surveillance” was reserved for highly specific scrutiny of suspects, for police wiretapping or for foreign intelligence. No more. Surveillance – the garnering of personal data for detailed analysis – now occurs routinely, locally and globally, as an unavoidable feature of everyday life in contemporary societies. Organizations of all kinds engage in surveillance and citizens, consumers, and employees generally comply with that surveillance (with some noteworthy exceptions). Surveillance is frequently, but not exclusively, carried out using networked computer systems, which vastly increase its capacities and scope. Once, concerns about surveillance were couched primarily in the language of privacy and, possibly, freedom. There is something sacrosanct, so the argument goes, about the “private” realm where I am “free to be myself” and where I need not fear the prying eyes of snoops and spies. There are some things I feel it inappropriate to reveal promiscuously to others, let alone to be revealed about me without my knowledge or consent. While these issues are still significant, it is becoming increasingly clear to many that they do not tell the whole story. For surveillance today sorts people into categories, assigning worth or risk, in ways that have real effects on their life-chances. Deep discrimination occurs, thus making surveillance not merely a matter of personal privacy but of social justice. “Surveillance as social sorting” indicates a new departure for surveillance studies. Not entirely new, of course, especially if one thinks of the work of Oscar Gandy (1993) on the “panoptic sort.” Gandy shows how consumer surveillance using database marketing produces discriminatory practices that cream off some and cut off others. Data about transactions is used both to target persons for further advertising and to dismiss consumers who are of little value to companies. What Gandy demonstrates in the consumer realm can be explored in other areas as well. That further exploration across a range of social terrains, undertaken here, suggests some new directions for surveillance studies.  

London: New York : Routledge, 2003, 302p