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Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time.

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By Siegfried Kracauer. Translated by, Gwenda David and Eric Moshbacher. New York: Zone Books, 2002. [418 p. ISBN 1-890951-30-7. $45.] Illustrations, bibliography, index.

The career of Siegfried Kracauer (18891966) as litterateur was similar to that of many of his compatriots who had the misfortune of being born Jewish and coming to the height of their intellectual gifts in Germany just as Fascism took power. Deracinated and driven into exile, they had to begin their lives again. Ultimately, as Hitler conquered Europe, they fled across the sea. Separated from their native language, their resources, and even their loved ones, they had to eke out a living, now in foreign tongues. It is nothing less than amazing how well they succeeded in mastering novel and idiomatic means of expression. In turn, they revolutionized ways of thinking, especially in the United States, to an extent that may have surpassed the impact on Europe by the exodus of Christian scholars after the rail of Constantinople.

Adrift in a sea of indifference to his fate, Kracauer saw parallels between the forced exit from his native land and Jacques Offenbach's...

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