In July 1989 the English scholar David Cannadine reviewed several recent books about Jews in modern Britain, including Eugene Black's The Social Politics of Anglo-Jewry 1880–1920, Tony Kushner's The Persistence of Prejudice: Anti-Semitism in British Society during the Second World War, and Stephen Brook's The Club: The Jews of Modern Britain. He began by asking,

Anthony Julius has produced an extensive study of antisemitism in England from the arrival of the first Jews after the Norman Conquest to the present day. There is nothing bland or lukewarm in his detailed account, or in its evidence of a deep-rooted and persistent English antisemitism that is intrinsic to every period of the island's history, including the four hundred year period from the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290 to their informal readmission in the late seventeenth century.

This book was not written exclusively for a scholarly audience. The lengthy introduction describes the author as a prominent English barrister who litigated the divorce of Princess Diana from Prince Charles and successfully defended historian Deborah Lipstadt in 1996 when she was sued for libel by David Irving. But neither is it simply a popular book; Julius has a PhD in literature from Cambridge University and has published a number of other scholarly works.

Part 1 begins with “Enmities,” a detailed chapter which defines antisemitism in a range of contexts. Chapter 2, “Defamations,” focuses on the libels which are part of “all versions of antisemitism.” Julius categorizes them under three headings: blood libel, conspiracy libel, and economic libel. The first of these, he argues, plays the most prominent part in the history of English antisemitism, from the medieval period to the modern. Part 2 takes a historical approach beginning with the harrowing treatment of Jews in medieval England, including violence against them that was both private and state-sanctioned, and ending with Edward I's Edict of Expulsion in 1290. The following chapter examines English literary antisemitism. Here Julius shines, using his expertise in English literature to gloss medieval antisemitic texts like Geoffrey Chaucer's The Prioress's Tale (fourteenth century) and to make connections among early modern works like Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta (1592) and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (1596–98). The chapter moves into the modern period with Daniel Defoe's Roxana (1724) and Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist (first published as a novel in 1838). The late nineteenth century is represented by Rudyard Kipling's “Jews of Shushan” in Life's Handicap (1891), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) and H.G. Wells's Tono Bungay (1909). Julius does not neglect those authors who subverted the usual antisemitic tropes and stereotypes. Most prominent among the authors of the “counter-texts” is George Elliot, especially her Daniel Deronda (1876). The chapter ends with a lengthy explication of James Joyce's Ulysses (first published as a novel in 1920) and the Jewish character, Leopold Bloom.

Chapter 5 takes as its focus modern English history and the protracted process of emancipation that unfolded in England over two hundred years, with the readmission of Jews in 1656, the short-lived Jewish Naturalization Bill (passed and repealed in the last six months of 1753), and finally Lionel de Rothschild's seating in Parliament in 1858. Julius shows that the history of modern Britain has been marked by moments of crisis when antisemitic discourse resonated widely. Although he rightly points out that no physical harm came to the Jewish population in this period, his insistence on this point sometimes sounds like an echo of the historiographical tradition of British exceptionalism, expressed in Cannadine's review quoted above. Julius demonstrates how discourse about Jews framed many of the most important historical developments of the nineteenth century, from Disraeli's career to incessant talk of the Eastern Question, and the Boer War culminating finally with the Aliens Act of 1905. The twentieth century was no different as English antisemitic rhetoric resounded during World War I, and accompanied the issuing of the Balfour Declaration, the establishment of the Palestinian Mandate, and the rise of European Fascism. From the days of the British Union of Fascists through the events of World War II, the founding of the State of Israel, the Suez Crisis, and finally the Six Day War, English commentary on these events sometimes reflected antisemitic distrust, condescension, hatred, and racism. Because these events demonstrate the intersection and interpenetration of metropole and colonies, scholars of modern Britain would probably expect to see them interpreted as they relate to the “imperial turn” in British historiography, the growing body of scholarship that has developed over the past twenty years documenting the impact of the British Empire on both colonial and metropolitan politics, society, and ideas. Julius does not undertake this kind of analysis. However, future scholars may benefit from using Julius's book to examine English antisemitic discourse and what it revealed about the connections between race, empire, and the toleration of Jews. The author's rehearsal of these events is followed by a lengthy discussion of the mentality of antisemitism in modern England and its gradual decline in acceptable public discourse prior to Israel's victory in the Six Day War.

The author identifies Israel's victory in 1967 as a turning point and the beginning of a new era in which “new anti-Zionism,” as he calls it, has become the vehicle for antisemitic thought. He is careful not to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism; however, in the last two chapters of the book, one on secular anti-Zionism and the other on confessional anti-Zionism, he identifies trends within anti-Zionist discourse among pro-Palestinian organizations whose implications he finds disturbing because they could be interpreted as antisemitic or might encourage antisemitism. Julius parses the patterns within their arguments with Zionism, indicating the differences from and similarities to the older antisemitic rhetoric laid out in the first six chapters of the book. Concern with the critics of Israel and with anti-Zionism presents itself here as the main focus and raison d'etre for the entire book. The relationship between the book's first six chapters and the last two, and the author's primary concern with the latter, is made quite clear in the preface to the paperback edition in which Julius contends that he does not equate antisemitism with anti-Zionism. He holds up Edward Said as an example of an anti-Zionist whose thought and writings evince no antisemitism.

The biggest problem with the book is also its rhetorical strength: a capacious definition of antisemitism, viewed as a constant throughout history. The term never serves as a category of analysis, a term that is historicized and in dialogue with its historical context. Julius does not place hostility and distrust of Jews in any historical or cultural context, nor does he seek to evaluate changes in the discourse over time. Furthermore, he does not discuss the distinction between anti-Judaism and antisemitism that has been well developed in scholarship on this topic. Julius is quite condescending about anti-Zionist arguments, often dismissing them without sufficient engagement. His harshest criticism is reserved for Jews who express what he considers anti-Zionist views.

With the exception of his literary interpretations, the book often reads like a laundry list of categories, events, and examples. Many of the reviews quoted in the front matter quite rightly refer to the book's encyclopedic character. Perhaps for a comprehensive study covering over nine hundred years, this is what is necessary. In any case, the book does raise a wealth of questions about the history of antisemitism in a specifically British context, suggesting new directions and avenues of inquiry for other scholars to pursue.