A History of the Jewish People Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is a big and interesting book. It begins with not only the traditional telling of the origins of Biblical Israel, it does not shy away with the intellectual problematics of that story. However, it is not as dismissive of the ancient stories as are most modern critics.
Only about one third of the book deals with biblical times at all, and much of that is well within historical times in the sense that we have contemporary records from other sources. The bulk of the book deals with the Jewish people in other settings, how their fortunes ebbed and flowed, and how they finally won emancipation in Europe.
There is also a telling of the rise of the Zionist movement, the Holocaust, and the founding of modern Israel. Although the later is very short and does not deal with the latest developments because the book is now twenty years old.
It reads quite well. You need not let its thousand page length hold you back because it reads more like a novel than a dry and dusty history. If you take your time reading it you will have more time to think about what you are reading and it will stick with you permanently. If you dash through it, all this great information will evaporate like the morning dew.

Click Here to see more reviews about: A History of the Jewish People


A History of the Jewish People presents a total vision of Jewish experiences and achievements--religious, political, social, and economic--in both the land of Israel and the diaspora throughout the ages. It has been acclaimed as the most comprehensive and penetrating work yet to have appeared in its field.

Six distinguished scholars at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, have set forth here for the first time the authentic story of the Jewish past that is relevant to the Jewish present. Special attention is paid to the significant historical sources that have come to light in the past decades, to the findings of archaeological research, and to source materials in Jewish studies such as talmudic literature--sources that have too often been ignored by historians.

Get 20% OFF

Buy cheap A History of the Jewish People now.