The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem

I initially purchased because the original link title said volumes 1-4, but I simply received volume one.

This book has 4 volumes. I only got 1. The description should not be worded to claim that it is the whole book. I will now look again somewhere else for this book and it has to include all 4 volumes or I will not buy it.

This is one of those books that is almost literally too hot to handle, except that it's not, really. Henry Ford has a peculiar place in the pantheon of American historical figures--he invented the modern assembly line and thus helped to popularize the automobile by making it affordable to the masses. Around 1920 he published a series of articles on the subject of what he called "the international Jew", around which time he was quoted as saying that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion seemed to "match what was going on". One need not imagine the outcry--it continues to this day. The question is--is the book worth reading? My answer has to be an emphatic yes. Wherever you stand on this issue, it is an essential work that must be considered in any study of so-called anti-semitism and its roots in America (as opposed to its much more complex and older roots in Europe.) Having always thought of Henry Ford as the father of the automobile and not as a writer on world affairs it is interesting to say the least to read his thoughts on the so-caled "Jewish Question". Contrary to what we are led to believe by those who would prefer this book be burned rather than read, even critically, it is not in the form of a hateful screed (a trend I'm discovering is true of much allegedly "hateful anti-semitic" literature.) Ford could hardly have provided modern historians with a better account of just what this "Jewish Question" was that so concerned him and others who have been unfairly labelled by history as simple "jew-haters". In his writing he is very much aware of the accusations (same then as now) that any interest in the study of Jewish group solidarity and power (both political and economic) must need be motivated by jealousy or historic-religious bigotry. In this we can all sympathize who have to contend with the gratuitous "anti-semite" smear when we do as little as take issue with the actions of AIPAC. One problem no doubt stems from Ford's reliance on the Protocols that we are assured time and again are forgeries. Ford makes an excellent point however that whether forged or not they describe in some detail things that, from his vantage point between WWI and WW2, seem almost prophetic given their appearance as early as 1905 (they are nonetheless alleged to have been written in 1897 or thereabouts, speculated by many to have been authored by Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, with no evidence.) While to the modern and enlightened reader much of Ford's writing will smell, if not actually read as quite possibly anti-jewish, perhaps most unfortunate is Ford's clear belief that the question of Jewish power in the world (i.e. independent of the states in which they reside) is of interest primarily to the dominant anglo-saxon racial majority in America whom are most threatened by what he sees as the Jews' much more developed sense of in-group identification and solidarity. The modern and enlightened reader benefits of course from a more balanced

Gerald L. K. Smith tells us: "At the apex of his business career Henry Ford, the industrial genius sensed that a terrific effort was being made to take his business from him and manipulate it into the hands of the money-changers. Mr. Ford had the impression that these manipulators were being engineered by powerful Jewish financiers. "He called to his office the most intelligent research men within his acquaintance. He commissioned them to make a thorough study of the International Jew and publish their findings in "The Dearborn Independent," which at that time was the official organ of the Ford Motor Company. No expense was spared, and it is estimated that literally millions of dollars were spent by Mr. Ford on this project. The original articles were carried first in "The Dearborn Independent," and then published in book form." In his book "My Life and Work," published in 1922, Henry Ford includes the following concerning the "International Jew" series of articles: "The work which we describe as Studies in the Jewish Question, and which is variously described by antagonists as "the Jewish campaign," "the attack on the Jews," "the anti-Semitic pogrom," and so forth, needs no explanation to those who have followed it. Its motives and purposes must be judged by the work itself. It is offered as a contribution to a question which deeply affects the country, a question which is racial at its source, and which concerns influences and ideals rather than persons. Our statements must be judged by candid readers who are intelligent enough to lay our words alongside life as they are able to observe it. If our word and their observation agree, the case is made. It is perfectly silly to begin to damn us before it has been shown that our statements are baseless or reckless. The first item to be considered is the truth of what we have set forth. And that is precisely the item which our critics choose to evade. Readers of our articles will see at once that we are not actuated by any kind of prejudice, except it may be a prejudice in favour of the principles which have made our civilization. There had been observed in this country certain streams of influence which were causing a marked deterioration in our literature, amusements, and social conduct; business was departing from its old-time substantial soundness; a general letting-down of standards was felt everywhere. It was not the robust coarseness of the white man, the rude indelicacy, say, of Shakespeare's characters, but a nasty Orientalism which has insidiously affected every channel of expression -- and to such an extent that it was time to challenge it. The fact that these influences are all traceable to one racial source is a fact to be reckoned with . . . Our work does not pretend to say that last word on the Jew in America. It says only the word which describes his present impress on that country. When that impress is changed, the report of it can be changed . . . Our opposition is only to idea