The Story of the Jews Volume Two: Belonging: 1492 – 1900

Book cover for The Story of the Jews Volume Two: Belonging: 1492 - 1900 by Simon Schamaby Simon Schama
@simon_schama

In the second of two volumes of this magnificently illustrated cultural history—the tie-in to the PBS and BBC series The Story of the Jews—Simon Schama details the story of the Jewish people, spanning from their expulsion from Spain in the Inquisition across six hundred years to the present day.

It is a story like no other: an epic of endurance against destruction, of creativity in the face of oppression, joy amidst grief, the affirmation of life against the steepest of odds.

It spans the centuries and the continents—from the Iberian Peninsula and the collapse of “the golden age” to the shtetls of Russia to the dusty streets of infant Hollywood. Its voices ring loud and clear, from the philosophical musings of Spinoza to the poetry written on slips of paper in concentraion camps. Within these pages, the Enlightenment unfolds, a great diaspora transforms a country, a Viennese psychaiatrist forever changes the conception of the human mind.

And a great story unfolds. Not—as often imagined—of a culture apart, but of a Jewish world immersed in and imprinted by the peoples among whom they have dwelled, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, from the Arabs to the Christians, from the Soviets to America.

Which makes the story of the Jews everyone’s story, too.

Show more
Show less

Interview with the Author

Podcast art for The Book Review from the New York TimesThe Book Review
‘The Story of the Jews’ continues
12/22/17          51 min

Podcast art for Vintage BooksVintage Books
Simon Schama and the story of the jews
10/19/17        22 min

Buy on Amazon

Related books

God's Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World by Alan MikhailGod’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World Churchill & Orwell: The Fight for Freedom The Silk Roads: A New History of the World Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain Book cover for Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe by Serhii PlokhyChernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*