1. Émile Zola and Hannah Arendt
Thinking About the Dreyfus Affair

2. Émile Zola 1840: Émile Zola is born in Paris.
1867: Zola publishes his first major novel, Thérèse Raquin.
1898: Zola publishes “J’Accuse…!” [I Accuse…!] in L’Aurore [The Dawn], a liberal French newspaper. Later in the same year, he is convicted of libel [lying] for his (truthful) accusations in the article. He flees to London to escape arrest.
1899: Zola returns to Paris and appeals his conviction. The government does not imprison him : Zola dies in Paris.
1908: Zola’s remains are moved to the Panthéon, where distinguished French citizens are buried.

3. J’Accuse…! “J’Accuse…!” was published on the front page of L’Aurore.
Zola intentionally provoked a libel trial by accusing army officers of crimes by name.
The publication of “J’Accuse…!” makes the Dreyfus Affair an international sensation.

4. Hannah Arendt 1906: Hannah Arendt is born in Hanover, Germany.
1933: Arendt leaves Germany and ultimately ends up living in Paris : Arendt leaves France for the United States.
1942: Arendt publishes “From the Dreyfus Affair to France Today.”
1961: Arendt covers the trial of Adolf Eichmann [a Nazi put on trial in Israel] for the New Yorker. She publishes the controversial Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, which argues that the Holocaust was perpetrated by everyday people, in 1963.
1975: Arendt dies in New York City.

5. From the Dreyfus Affair to France Today
“From the Dreyfus Affair to France Today” was well-received when it was published, but its conclusions are very different from what historians now think about the Dreyfus Affair.
Arendt does not really cite evidence to prove that what she says is true. Arendt is rather harsh in her characterizations of Alfred and Mathieu Dreyfus.
Arendt is interested in the Dreyfus Affair more for its relevance to the France she was living in than for its own sake.