Blood Will Tell Vampires as Political Metaphors Before World War I [Hardcover]

Blood Will Tell explores the ways in which writers, thinkers, and politicians used blood and vampire-related imagery to express social and cultural anxieties in the decades leading up to the First World War. Covering a wide variety of topics, including science, citizenship, gender, and anti-Semitism, Robinson demonstrates the ways in which rhetoric tied to blood and vampires permeated political discourse and transcended the disparate cultures of Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, forming a cohesive political and cultural metaphor. An excellent resource, both for students of nineteenth century cultural history and for those interested in the historical roots of Western fascination with vampires.This fascinating and illuminating book shows clearly how the interest in vampirism which developed in Britain, France, and Germany in the three quarters of a century before the end of the Second World War was linked with the popularisation of a more scientific understanding of the human body and the role of blood in it. This development was related both to fears about the advancement of women and to the development of new forms of antisemitism and the book thus makes a major contribution to the crisis of liberal values in the years between 1870 and 1945.Blood Will Tell is short and concise, yet its coverage is impressive. . . . Robinson draws attention to many points of convergence between anti-Semitic stereotypes and vampire imagery, reinforcing her argument with some 30 political cartoons from Punch, Puck, Harpers Weekly, Kladderadatsch, and less familiar publications like the Justice Journal or The Judgea feature that considerably enhances the value of her book. . . . Robinson often cites neglected or overlooked texts including Herman Stracks The Jew and Human Sacrifice: An Historical and Sociological Inquiry (1898), and forgotten novels like Coulson Kernahans Captain Shannon (1896) or Guy de Charnac?s Le Baron Vampire (1885). These unusual addl³2