Dreyfus

After Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer, was wrongly convicted in 1894 of spying for Germany and imprisoned on Devil's Island, the fight to undo the injustice tore France apart. Historian Ruth Harris, drawing on private letters and thousands of sources not previously considered, explains how an obscure case split families, provoked anti-Semitic riots throughout the French empire and almost brought a coup. Rejecting the familiar story of truth-loving democrats against proto-fascists, she writes the first in-depth history of both camps, showing how military tensions, the rival claims of justice and nationalism, and webs of friendship and family shaped each side. The book won a National Jewish Book Award.

Robert Greene included it in an Instagram post of a few favorite biographies he was reading for his new book.