The Man on Devil's Island

Oct 26, 2024 1:34 AM

Author:Ruth Harris

Winner of the Wolfson History Prize 2010 and the 2010 National Jewish Book Award for Biography

Ruth Harris writes beautifully and engagingly on a moment in French history that polarized society and undermined the French state; the repercussions of which were felt up to the outbreak of the Second World War.

At the end of September 1894 a charlady stole an undated and unsigned letter from the wastepaper bin of the German military attaché in Paris. Torn to pieces but stuck back together by French intelligence, this document contained French military secrets. By the middle of October a Jewish captain in the army called Alfred Dreyfus was accused of being its author. As it turned out, he was entirely innocent, but at the time few questioned the verdict of the subsequent court martial, nor the unanimous decision to sentence him to a life of penal servitude. Public opinion was outraged, and the War Minister, General Auguste Mercier, asked for the reintroduction of the death penalty so Dreyfus could be guillotined. Although the request was turned down, Dreyfus was still subjected to special conditions: rather than going to New Caledonia like other transported convicts, he was sent to the much harsher Devil's Island off the coast of French Guiana, and condemned to solitary confinement in murderous conditions. The French authorities did not expect - and probably did not want - him to survive.

So undisputed was Dreyfus' conviction that no one had any inkling it would be queried, let alone that the case would become the scandal that nearly brought down the French state. It changed the political course of the nation and transformed the way the country viewed itself and was viewed by others.

Reviews

Winner of the WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2010 and 2010 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY

—— Prizes and awards

An extraordinary study of the affair as a tragic drama that swept up a man, his family and friends, and more widely French society and the French state.

—— Robert Gildea , The New York Review of Books

A triumph of research and analysis.

—— Max McGuinness , The Irish Times

Ruth Harris offers us one of the most thorough and eloquent accounts of this turbulent episode.

—— Gavin Bowd , Scotland on Sunday

With the aid of copious illustrations, helpful chronology and a list of leading characters, [Harris] offers a compelling account of incidents

—— Malcolm Cook , BBC History

Ruth Harris' minutely detailed examination of the rich mulch from which the Dreyfus case sprouted its fleurs du mal, adds a new level of learning to the affair that defined 20th-century France

—— Nigel Jones , Telegraph

a highly imaginative, deeply-researched inquiry into the battle over Dreyfus which revels in paradox and complexity.

—— Michael Marrus , TLS

"Harris is a first-rate narrative historian... What marks Harris's contribution is her formidable research skills, her exceptionally wide general and historical reading, and her always interesting eye for the revealing anecdote or pen portrait."

—— Carmen Callil , The Guardian

"Scrupulous and well-written... Harris is to be thanked for the care and measure of her sifting and weighing, and for the deep historical perspective that she brings to the undertaking."

—— Christopher Hitchens , The Weekly Standard

Cruickshank brilliantly sketches the wild whirligig of drunkenness, debauchery, theft, exploitation, merriness, subversion, corruption, lust, fantasy, violence, disease, starvation and early death

—— Telegraph

Witty, elegantly written and memorable

—— Architectural Review

It is the small revelations about the character of Blair that make this book worthwhile

—— Ross Clark , The Express

It's a gripping insight into the ex-PM's ten years of power . . . It will take a lot for many people to read his own take on the rise and fall of New Labour, but those that do might be reminded of the charm and vision that swept him to power

—— News of the World

I have read many a prime ministerial memoir and none of the other authors has been as self-deprecating, as willing to admit mistakes and to tell jokes against themselves

—— Mary Ann Sieghart , The Independent

Paints a candid picture of his friend and rival, Gordon Brown, and of their relationship

—— Patrick Hennessy , The Sunday Telegraph

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