The History of the Jews Author:Paul Johnson This historical magnum opus covers 4,000 years of the extraordinary history of the Jews as a people, a culture, and a nation. It shows the impact of Jewish character on the world: their genius, imagination and, most of all, their ability to persevere despite severe persecutions. Compelling insights into events and individuals are chronologically... more » detailed, from Moses and Jesus to Spinoza, Marx, Freud, the Rothschilds, and Golda Meir.
''Why have I written a history of the Jews? . . . When I was working on my History of Christianity, I became aware for the first time in my life of the magnitude of debt Christianity owes to Judaism . . . the book gave me the chance to reconsider objectively, in the light of a study covering nearly 4,000 years, the most intractable of all human questions: what are we on earth for? Is history merely a series of events whose sum is meaningless?'' --from the Prologue« less