[â¦] A remarkably erudite scholar, Dufoix [â¦] describes the "social, political, intellectual and economic patterns" that have "rendered (the term) richer, with multiple and often contradictory significations. [â¦] An impressive and, indeed, unique book that will assuredly serve as the definitive work on the history of the frequently invoked term "diaspora.""
Summing Up: Essential. All academic levels/libraries.
D. Altschiller, Boston University, CHOICE, August 2017
"With a breadth and depth of knowledge that is simply unrivaled, Dufoix uncovers the genealogy of diaspora from its ancient origins to its extraordinary proliferation in the contemporary era. A work of massive erudition and ambition, The Dispersion is by far the most original, comprehensive, and exciting account of its subject. It is hard to see how this book could ever be surpassed." â Kevin Kenny, Professor of History, Boston College, author of Diaspora: A Very Short Introduction
Acknowledgements ... ix
List of Maps, Illustrations, Figures and Tables ... xi
Introduction. Towards a Historical Socio-semantics of a Word in Vogue ... 1
Part 1: From the Word to the Concept
Introduction to Part 1 ... 23
1 The Word of the Septuagint ... 27
2 The Religious Space of Dispersion ... 76
3 Towards a Secular Concept ... 134
Part 2: Cham Dispersed: From the Jewish Model to the Reversal
Introduction to Part 2 ... 181
4 Next Year in Ethiopia: Blacks at the Jewish Mirror ... 185
5 A Name of Oneâs Own: The Emergence of the Black/African Diaspora ... 231
6 The Reversal ... 279
Part 3: The Name of the Global
Introduction to Part 3 ... 337
7 Constructing the Field of Diaspora Studies ... 340
8 The Critical Turn ... 392
9 States and Their Diasporas ... 444
Conclusion. Two Cats and Three Demons ... 495
Bibliography ... 501
Index of Names ... 581
All interested in the word and the concept of diaspora from Antiquity to the present, in migration and transnationalism, and identity studies; scholars of historical semantics and sociology of concepts.