Neue Menschen auf alter Erde was first published as a series of feuilletons in a Vienna newspaper.

[2] In 1902, Herzl published an influential utopian novel about a future Jewish state in Palestine, Altneuland, but he died in 1904, before his dream could become reality.

During that era, however, antisemitic sentiments and pogroms drew Jews to immigrate to Palestine and to acquire land and to found settlements.

Neue Menschen auf alter Erde contains several kinds of material: subjective depictions of landscapes, discussions with local people, participating observations of daily life, autobiographical sketches, ponderings upon the history of Jews and the Judaic religion, especially the character of Moses.

Sometimes he presents surprising analogues and reflections, like comparing Safed to Prague or the antagonism between Arabs and Jews to that between cats and dogs, and describes the tourism industry of the Holy Land ironically.