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From Booklist ( /gp/feature.html/?docId=1000027801 ) ---------------------------------------------------- *Starred Review* Schama is a professor at Columbia University, an award-winning author of history and art books, and a writer and producer of accled television documentaries. This is the first of a planned two-volume work, and it covers the development of Judaism and the Jewish people from their first stirring of a sense of a national identity up to the expulsion of Jews from Spain. Schama has written an unconventional but masterful and deeply felt history of his people, which seamlessly integrates themes of art, religion, and ethnicity as he illustrates how Jews both influenced and were influenced by the other people they lived among for more than 1,500 years. While Schama follows a roughly chronological approach, this is not a strictly narrative account. Rather, he focuses on particular topics to define the essence of a particular period, and he does so by examining literary and archaeological remnants that provide a human and often deeply moving touch. A letter from a Jewish mercenary in Egypt illustrates the paradox of a Jewish “return” to the land of their enslavement. The writings of a poet in eleventh-century Granada convey both the benefits and difficulties of Jewish life in a Muslim state. This beautifully written chronicle is a tie-in to an upcoming PBS series. --Jay Freeman Read more ( javascript:void(0) ) Review ------ “Award-winning Columbia University historian Schama . . . brings to bear his gift for synthesizing ains of information into a well-crafted, accessible narrative in this impressive volume that spans nearly 2,500 years and serves as a companion volume to a PBS series.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review)) “A multifaceted story artfully woven by an expert historian.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review)) “Schama has written an unconventional but masterful and deeply felt history of his people…” (Booklist (starred review)) “Mr. Schama’s The Story of the Jews is exemplary popular history. It’s engaged, literate, alert to recent scholarship and, at moments, winningly personal.” (New York Times) “In his brilliant new history of the Jews, the unconventional scholar somehow manages to be simultaneously sentimental and subversive, con and contrarian - and we readers are the beneficiaries.” (Haaretz (English edition)) “Mr. Schama’s history flashes by with entertaining velocity…” (Wall Street Journal) “An energetic cascade of prose and erudition, rife with pointillist detail and witty colloquialisms…” (Chicago Tribune, Printers Row) “Schama writes history from below, and from the middle and other unexpected angles, resurrecting the unrecorded and long-forgotten, and analyzing the social and cultural forces that shaped his subjects’ lives… [he] has pulled it off with opinionated flair and literary grace.” (New York Times Book Review) “Stirring and fascinating” (Los Angeles Times) “Schama is a historian of prodigious and varied gifts. He can take a specific subject and drill deep; he can take a wide-angled view of many countries over long periods of time. He does both in this excellent first volume… Revealing and moving.” (San Francisco Chronicle) Read more ( javascript:void(0) ) See all Editorial Reviews ( /dp/product-description/0060539186/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books&isInIframe=0 )