Max Simon Nordau (born Simon Maximilian Südfeld; 29 July 1849 – 23 January 1923) was a Jewish Zionist leader, physician, author, and social critic. He was a co-founder of the Zionist Organization together with Theodor Herzl, and president or vice-president of several Zionist congresses.
In his younger years, he was known as a social critic, writing The Conventional Lies of Our Civilisation (1883), Degeneration (1892), and Paradoxes (1896). By 1913, Nordau was established as the earliest major critic of modernism. Although not his most popular or successful work while alive, Degeneration is the book most often remembered and cited today.
Biography
Simon (Simcha) Maximilian Südfeld (later Max Nordau) was born in the city of Pest, Kingdom of Hungary, then part of the Austrian Empire. His father, Gabriel Südfeld, was a rabbi, but earned his livelihood as a Hebrew tutor. As an Orthodox Jew, Nordau attended a Jewish elementary school, then a Lutheran Christian secondary school in the city of Pest, and later earned a medical degree from the University of Pest in 1872. He then traveled for six years, visiting the principal countries of Europe. He changed his name before going to Berlin in 1873. In 1878, he began the practice of medicine in Budapest. In 1880, he went to Paris. He worked in Paris as a correspondent for the Austrian daily newspaper Neue Freie Presse, and it was in Paris that he spent most of his life.
Before entering the university, he had begun his literary career in Budapest as a contributor and dramatic critic for the German language newspaper Der Zwischenact. Subsequently, he was an editorial writer and correspondent for several other newspapers. His newspaper writings were collected and furnished the material for his earlier books. He was a disciple of Cesare Lombroso.
