A biography of the Dreyfus family--whose name is linked with the notorious Dreyfus Affair--traces the clan from the French Revolution to the Second World War There are more than 1000 books investigating the Dreyfus affair and its consequences for France in the 20th century. The central character of the affair, Alfred Dreyfus, often appears as little more than a person caught up in the much larger set of sociopolitical events dominated by the key political actors. Burns, professor at Mount Holyoke College and author of numerous articles and books on this era of European history, focuses his attention on Dreyfus and his family. While the book covers before and after the affair, the major objective is to examine the family during the decade-long affair. The author shows the role of Dreyfus's brother, Mathieu, in keeping the case before the public during its early years. An insightful look at a Jewish family in France as well as at the affair itself, this book will be of interest to scholars and to general readers interested in contemporary European history. - Frank L. Wilson, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, Ind. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. In 1894, at age 35, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, officer, father, and husband, enjoying success after many years of study, devotion, and discipline, was unaccountably arrested for high treason and thereby became a symbol--as victim to some and traitor to others-- of the imperfections in French military justice and the precarious position of Jews in French society. Now, after at least a thousand studies, novels, plays, and films of what came to be known as ``the Dreyfus affair,'' Burns (History/Mt. Holyoke) offers perhaps the first comprehensive study of Dreyfus the man, and of his family. The Dreyfus family history is typical of French Jews. Culturally assimilated after Jews were emancipated by the Edict of 1791, the Dreyfuses found financial opportunity in industry (textiles) and social status in the military, where young Alfred's intelligence, discipline, and methodical nature were rewarded with promotions, an appointment in Paris, and his marriage to a wealthy young Jewess, Lucy Hadamard. Without warning and without cause, however, he was arrested for treason on the basis of an unsigned document in someone else's handwriting, convicted in an irrational judicial process (he believed his crime was being a Jew), publicly humiliated, and deported to Devil's Island, where he spent five years in solitary confinement before his brother won his freedom with the confession of the true spy. Knighted in 1906, Dreyfus championed various working-class causes, served along with his son in WW I, and lived to see the scandal revived in the anti-Semitism of the 30's, finally dying in 1935, having outlived nearly everyone else involved in the affair. Because he was so undemonstrative--he ``lived,'' as his son said, an ``intense interior life''--Dreyfus remains inscrutable, even as the focus of such a carefully documented and analyzed study as this. And with minimal theorizing and offering little cultural context, the virulence of the anti-Semitism that trapped Dreyfus remains unexplained, as does his failure--refusal?--to become the martyr his followers wanted him to be. (Sixteen pages of b&w photos--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.