The International Jew

The best lesson one can draw from this book is that being a great industrialist does not necessarily convey expertise in other subjects. The International Jew began as a four-volume set of pamphlets, published by Henry Ford in the 1920s, in which he attempted to justify his anti-Semitic views by couching his beliefs not as racism but as "fact."

What follows is an unwieldy and meandering set of essays in which Ford uses pseudo-science and third-rate sociology (as well as talk of conspiracy and "ancient prophecy") in an attempt to scientifically prove that "the Jew" is the biggest problem holding the world back.

If something nice can be said about this book, it’s that Ford is absolutely thorough in his accusations--perhaps an illustration of the kind of attention to detail that made him rise to such heights as a businessman. In his essays, he accuses the Jewish people of just about everything under the sun: fomenting Communism, gambling on baseball, making "Jewish Jazz" our national music, even conspiring with Benedict Arnold. Ford may have done as much as anyone in history to propel American industry into the future, but his anti-Semitic ramblings would have us stepping back into the Dark Ages.