1 Introduction Chapter 2 Chapter 1: A Medieval Context Chapter 3 Chapter 2: Settlement and Demography Chapter 4 Chapter 3: Community and Social Life Chapter 5 Chapter 4: Identity: Religion and Culture Chapter 6 Chapter 5: Relations with the Other 7 Conclusions 8 Glossary of Terms 9 Bibliography 10 Suggestions for Further Reading
Dean Phillip Bell is dean and professor of Jewish history at Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago.
Dean Phillip Bell provides at last a masterful and comprehensive
overview of the era that was traditionally seen as an interim
between the Middle Ages and the modern age of Jewish emancipation.
Bell's most important innovation is to bring to an already
distinguished tradition of Jewish history the fruits of a
generation of scholarship on European, including Jewish, social
history. Bell is critical where he must be, generous where he can
be, and always thorough. This is a book for students, scholars, and
all lovers of history.
*Thomas A. Brady, Peder Sather Professor of History, University of
California, Berkeley*
Bell offers a comprehensive synopsis of the whole range of Jewish
life and experience in the early modern world, including Asia and
the Americas. His wide reading, sane judgment, and good eye for the
telling detail make it difficult to imagine a more successful
introduction to the subject.
*Constantin Fasolt, professor of history, The University of
Chicago*
The presentation of three hundred years of Jewish life over much of
the surface of the world requires a balance of vivid examples and
simplifying generalization. Bell, in a balanced voice, skillfully
navigates between specifics and generalization to provide the
fundamental features of the period. The book subdues the dizzying
variety of phenomena by presenting them consistently in the
categories of social, legal and economic history, rather than
multiple, disconnected narratives from unrelated places. A timeline
and glossary of terms, as well as illustrations, maps and tables
assist readers who are unprepared in Jewish history.
*Arthur Lesley, associate professor of Hebrew literature, Baltimore
Hebrew University*
The book's greatest accomplishment is bringing to our attention
Jewish communities beyond Europe and the Ottoman Empire, and as
such might open up new horizons for both students and teachers of
the early modern period in general, or Jewish history in
particular.
*Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal Of Jewish Studies, February
2008*
[This book] is not only a useful advanced textbook with a
well-written narrative, but a splendid, high-level window into the
theme useful for scholarly nonspecialists. . . . No comparable
comprehensive book is available. This will be the standard
introductory work on the theme for both early modern history and
Jewish history and is an absolute must for every library. . . .
Essential. All levels/libraries.
*CHOICE*
This book can serve as a useful reference book that provides a
clear and readable introduction to many topics in greater depth
than an encyclopedia entry would do. The contents are clearly
organized with an emphasis on providing basic data and information
and less on presenting broader themes. The result is a clearly
written guide that gives serious attention to the oft-neglected
field of social history and not only to intellectual and political
topics. The coverage of a wide range of communities is
admirable.
*Religious Studies Review, June 2009*
This survey would be well suited to upper-level undergraduate
classes on early modern history or courses on the history of
Judaism.
*Sixteenth Century Journal, Summer 2009*
Dean Bell's Jews in the Early Modern World is intelligent and well
written. Presenting the world of European Jewry from the early
Middle Ages, through the rise of Islam, to the Age of Discovery in
the light of Jewish religious practice, communal history, and
social interactions, Bell's book is clear and accessible. One of
the few books that looks both at the internal history of the Jews
as well as the relationship of this history to the greater currents
of the time, it is the ideal textbook for a Jewish studies class on
modern Jewish history as well as a world history class dealing with
the Jews in the early modern world.
*Sander L. Gilman, Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and
Sciences, Emory University*
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