It has long been acknowledged that Richard Wagner was a virulent anti-Semite, yet the composer has also been characterized as an idealistic revolutionary. In this fascinating book, Paul Lawrence Rose argues that for Wagner, as for many other Germans, the idea of revolution always contained a racial and antisemitic core. He offers fresh and stimulating interpretations of Wagner's music based on an analysis of their revolutionary and anti-Semitic elements. "An epoch-making study of Wagner's antisemitism-the most important work on the subject now available."-Barry Millington, New Statesman "A pioneering and realistic study."-Conor Cruise O'Brien, Sunday Telegraph