In 70 CE, the Jews were an agrarian and illiterate people living mostly in the Land of Israel and Mesopotamia. By 1492 the Jewish people had become a small group of literate urbanites specializing in crafts, trade, moneylending, and medicine in hundreds of places across the Old World, from Seville to Mangalore. What caused this radical change? The Chosen Few presents a new answer to this question by applying the lens of economic analysis to the key facts of fifteen formative centu...

In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilizationEnvironmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted. As in Guns, Germs, and S...

From the author of Jews, God, and History, this comprehensive history of the Jewish people is "an epic drama, searching and nobly conceived" ( Publishers Weekly).A compelling and readable account of the four thousand year history of a people that spans the globe and transcends the ages. From the ancient and simple faith of a small tribe to a global religion with adherents in every nation, the path of the Jews is traced through countless expulsi...

A vivid and eminently readable story of Jewish history covering 4,000 years, and including extensive illustrations and historical photographsHoward Fast, the bestselling author of Spartacus, tells the sweeping story of the Jewish people and Judaism over four millennia, from their nomadic beginnings and the rise of Moses, to the kings David and Solomon, through the Diaspora and the unthinkable horror of the Holocaust, culminating in the founding of the stat...

A rich study of Jews and Jewish history that offers a unique look at a people who have persevered through unspeakable adversity and have contributed incredible advancements to the world we know today.How have the Jews survived through so many millennia while other civilizations have declined and perished? What qualities mark the culture that has produced Moses, Christ, Spinoza, Marx, Freud, and Einstein?From ancient Palestine through Europe and Asia, to Ame...

A historical tour de force, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a groundbreaking account of Jewish and Israeli history. Exploding the myth that there was a forced Jewish exile in the first century at the hands of the Romans, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand argues that most modern Jews descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered across the Middle East and Eastern Europe.In this iconoclastic work, which spent nineteen weeks on the Israeli bestseller list and...

From the bestselling authors of The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, a compelling discussion of the dangerous rise in antisemitism during the twenty-first century.The very word Jew continues to arouse passions as does no other religious, national, or political name. Why have Jews been the object of the most enduring and universal hatred in history? Why did Hitler consider murdering Jews more important than winning World War II? Why has the...

Thanks to collapsing birthrates, much of Europe is on a path of willed self-extinction. The untold story is that birthrates in Muslim nations are declining faster than anywhere elseâ??at a rate never before documented. Europe, even in its decline, may have the resources to support an aging population, if at a terrible economic and cultural cost. But in the impoverished Islamic world, an aging population means a civilization on the brink of total collapseâ?? something Islamic terrorists kno...

Normon Solomon's succinct book is an ideal introduction to Judaism as a religion and way of life. Demonstrating the diverse nature and ethnic origin of those with the Jewish faith, Solomon explores how the Jewish religion has developed in the 2,000 years since the days of the Bible. This Very Short Introduction starts by outlining the basics of practical Judaism - its festivals, prayers, customs, and various sects - and goes on to consider how Judaism has responded to, and dealt w...

National Bestseller"A tour de force. . . . A remarkable achievement." —New York Times Book Review"A marvelous book. . . . This is history: richly textured, provocative and wise." —Plain DealerFrom acclaimed historian Paul Johnson, author of Modern Times and A History of American People, this brilliant 4000 year survey covers not only Jewish histor...

The history of the Jews of Spain is a remarkable story that begins in the remote past and continues today. For more than a thousand years, Sepharad (the Hebrew word for Spain) was home to a large Jewish community noted for its richness and virtuosity. Summarily expelled in 1492 and forced into exile, their tragedy of expulsion marked the end of one critical phase of their history and the beginning of another. Indeed, in defiance of all logic and expectation, the expulsion of the Jews from ...

There has never been a more important time for a study of the social, economic, and political origins of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the three important world religions that share a common root. This book adopts a Marxist, that is a materialist, view of human development, so it takes as its starting point the idea that gods, angels, miracles, and other supernatural phenomena do not exist in the real world and therefore cannot be taken as explanations for the origin and rise of these ...