The Man on Devil's Island: Alfred Dreyfus and The Affair that Divided France, By Ruth Harris

J'accuse both the prosecution and the defence

This account of the trial and conviction of Alfred Dreyfus on charges of treason – the motivation for Emile Zola's infamous "J'Accuse" – is a densely packed but fascinating look at the circumstances in France that produced the anti-Semitic affair.

It wasn't just that Dreyfus was Jewish, Ruth Harris argues; he also spoke with a hint of a German accent, and this so shortly after France's humiliation by Prussia. She targets the two different sides that grew up around the trial, the left-wing intellectual "Dreyfusards" and the right-wing nationalistic anti-Dreyfusards, and exposes faults on both sides. The lack of evidence and the lies that were concocted by the elite at the time, to secure a conviction, look horribly contemporary, too.