The Illustrated History of the Jewish People

By most accounts Jewish history begins with the Babylonians' destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. This well-made compendium, written by many hands, is in agreement. However, The Illustrated History of the Jewish People departs from traditional history in many ways, most notably in its attempts to understand figures who have been reduced to symbols. Herod, for example, "deserved his reputation for ruthlessness, cruelty and paranoia," but was also a product of his time, caught in a complex web of politics only partly of his own making. Editor Nicholas De Lange and the volume's contributors do a fine job of gathering the many strains of Jewish history into a single narrative, which ends with a discussion of the ongoing search for peace in the Middle East.

• Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom--and Revenge
• An Illustrated History of the Jewish People: The epic 4,000-year story of the Jews, from the ancient patriarchs and kings through centuries-long persecution to the growth of a worldwide culture
• The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History
• A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People: From the Time of the Patriarchs to the Present
• Holocaust: An American Understanding (Key Words in Jewish Studies)
• The Last Trial: On the Legends and Lore of the Command to Abraham to Offer Isaac as a Sacrifice (Jewish Lights Classic Reprint)
• The Jews of Modern France (Jewish Communities in the Modern World)
• How Judaism Became a Religion: An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thought
• American Judaism: A History
• The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus