Salem on the Thames

“Richard Landes offers a sharply-drawn, no-holds-barred dissection of today’s campus politics at its worst. As a case study of the damage done to academic integrity by the intrusion of anti-Zionism into college life, his book is a must-read.”  —Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies and Director, Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, Indiana UniversityThis compelling volume focuses on the story of Andrew Pessin, a tenured philosophy professor at Connecticut College, who was accused by students and faculty of having “directly condoned the extermination of a people” based on a deliberate misreading of his 2015 Facebook post on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Salem on the Thames captures the events as they unfolded and discusses topics such as Western sentiments concerning Israeli-Palestinian relations, academics and free speech, antisemitism and diversity on the college campus, and social media and politics. The Pessin affair offers us a case study in a tendency towards “public shaming” reminiscent of the Salem witch trials that deeply compromises the integrity of academia.