This is the story of an illustrious Romanian-born, Hungarian-speaking, Vienna-schooled, Columbia-educated and Harvard-formed, middle-class Jewish professor of politics and other subjects. Markovits revels in a rootlessness that offers him comfort, succor, and the inspiration for his life's work. As we follow his quest to find a home, we encounter his engagement with the important political, social, and cultural developments of five decades on two continents. We also learn about his musical preferences, from classical to rock; his love of team sports such as soccer, baseball, basketball, and American football; and his devotion to dogs and their rescue. Above all, the book analyzes the travails of emigration the author experienced twice, moving from Romania to Vienna and then from Vienna to New York.
Markovits's Candide-like travels through the ups and downs of post-1945 Europe and America offer a panoramic view of key currents that shaped the second half of the twentieth century. By shedding light on the cultural similarities and differences between both continents, the book shows why America fascinated Europeans like Markovits and offered them a home that Europe never did: academic excellence, intellectual openness, cultural diversity and religious tolerance. America for Markovits was indeed the beacon on the hill, despite the ugliness of its racism, the prominence of its everyday bigotry, the severity of its growing economic inequality, and the presence of other aspects that mar this worthy experiment's daily existence.
Andrei S. Markovits is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Karl W. Deutsch Collegiate Professor of Comparative Politics and German Studies; Professor of Political Science; Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures; Professor of Sociology at the The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Michael Ignatieff served as President and Rector of CEU between 2016 and 2021. He now is a professor in CEU's history department. Ignatieff comes to CEU after serving as Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice of the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Title: The Passport as Home: Comfort in Rootlessness
Author: Markovits, Andrei
ISBN: 9789633864210
Binding:
Publisher: Central European University Press
Publication Date: 2021-08-19
Number of Pages: 328
Weight: 0.4491 kg
The great Jew ish his to ri an Salo Baron defined the lachry mose school of Jew ish his to ri og ra phy, that long litany of suf fer ing and per se cu tion that for many defines Jew ish life and his to ry. Andy Markovits's mem oir is the anec dote to that school: a sun ny, opti mistic, and uplift ing read. It doesn't gloss over the sad ness of post-War Europe, but it shows how that lost world could pro duce a vital future and how a state less, root less per son could nonethe less turn that con di tion into a ful filled life. https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/the-passport-as-home-comfort-in-rootlessness
-- Martin Green * Jewish Book Council *
Perhaps the best that one may hope for sometimes is the richness of a life lived without such a destructive set of emotions, the worth of work that is grounded on logic and evidence, the support of people (as the author generously attests to in this memoir) from whom one can learn and with whom one can share insight and understanding. It is this record and these experiences, perhaps above all, which shine brightest out of this evocative memoir.
-- Philip Spencer * Fathom *