Jacob Talmon

Jacob Talmon (born June 14, 1916, Rypin, Poland—died June 16, 1980, Jerusalem) was an Israeli historian of ideas.

Talmon graduated with a master’s degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1939) and received a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science (1943). He joined the faculty of the Hebrew University as an instructor in 1949 and was promoted to professor of modern history in 1960.

His reputation was founded on and remains associated with his work The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (1952), for which he was awarded the Israel Prize for Social Sciences in 1956. In that work, Talmon sought to uncover the roots of modern political ideologies, tracing a direct line between, for instance, Jacobinism and Stalinism. Talmon also argued that modern ideologies were not only works of reason but were also motivated by new forms of “religious fervour” and messianic expectations.

Talmon, who was a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and one of the nation’s most-respected scholars, pleaded for a more open policy toward the Arab world, opposed the establishment of new settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories, and generally advocated a compromise between Israel and the Palestinians based on mutual recognition of their rights to self-determination.

His other publications include Political Messianism: The Romantic Phase (1960), The Unique and the Universal (1965), Israel Among the Nations (1970), and The Age of Violence (1974)..