One of the core themes of anti-Semitic propaganda is that Jews commit ritual and serial murder, either in groups as a religious exercise or individually as a being uncontrolled by religion or sanity. Vyleta (European College of Liberal Arts, Berlin) offers an interesting comparison of the nightmarish anti-Semite popular publications of the nineteenth century in Austria and those perpetuated by the current sort of anti-Semite. He challenges historiographic assumptions about Jewish criminology, noting how much was simply an effort to neutralize the Jews under their control them, thereby deliberately destroying the epidemiological basis of society itself. He describes the "scientific" works that sought to convince a society newly built upon expert testimony that Jews were leading practitioners of horror and disruption, and examines the guilt, innocence, and often convenient arrests of Jewish "suspects." He focuses on the Hilsner ritual murder trials as examples of the triumph of prejudice over reason. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)