History of the Jews Vol.6 (of 6): Containing a Memoir of the Author by Dr. Philip Bloch, a Chronological Table of Jewish History, an Index to the Whole Work (History of the Jews Series)

Example in this ebook

With the Index Volume, the Jewish Publication Society of America brings to a close the American edition of the “History of the Jews” by Professor H. Graetz. A glance at the title-page and the table of contents will show, that the celebrated historian cannot be held directly responsible for anything this volume contains. The History proper, as abridged under the direction of the author and translated into English from the eleven volume German edition, is complete in five volumes. In compiling this additional volume, the Publication Committee was prompted by the desire to render the work readily available for pedagogical purposes. To be of value to the general reader as well as to the scholar, a work containing upwards of three thousand pages needs to be equipped with indexes, tables, and helps of various kinds.
The importance of indexes can hardly be over-estimated. The English jurist and writer who considered them so essential that he “proposed to bring a Bill into Parliament to deprive an author who publishes a book without an Index of the privilege of copyright” was not too emphatic. In books of facts, such as histories, indexes are indispensable. This has been fully recognized in the Society’s edition of Graetz’s “History of the Jews.” Each of the five volumes, as it appeared, was furnished with an adequate index. Yet there are two reasons justifying and even requiring the compilation of a general index to the whole work. The first is the reader’s convenience. All who use books to any extent know the annoyance of taking volume after volume from the shelf to find the desired information only in the last. In fact, the separate indexes were compiled only because circumstances compelled the publication of the single volumes at rather long intervals. The other consideration is that Professor Graetz is the historiographer par excellence of the Jews. His work, at present the authority upon the subject of Jewish history, bids fair to hold its pre-eminent position for some time, perhaps decades. A comprehensive index to his work is, therefore, at the same time an index to the facts of Jewish history approximately as accepted by contemporary scholars--a sufficient reason for its existence.
To make it a worthy guide to Jewish history in general, the index necessarily had to be more than a mere compilation of the five separate indexes. In the matter of the names of persons and places, accordingly, the general index excels the others in the fullness and completeness of the references. But its chief title to superiority over them lies in its character as an Index of Subjects, illustrated by such captions as Blood Accusation; Conversions, forced; Coins; Emancipation of the Jews; Bulls, Papal; Apostasy and Apostates; Messiah and Messianic; Bible under the headings Law, Old Testament, Pentateuch, Scriptures, Septuagint, Translations, and Vulgate; Education under the headings, Colleges, Rabbinical and Talmudical, Law, Schools, Talmud, and Talmud Torah. These summaries will be suggestive, it is hoped, to the teacher of Jewish history and to the student with sufficient devotion to the subject to pursue it topically and pragmatically as well as in its chronologic sequence. As an illustration of what use may be made of it, the compiler has prefixed to the index a guide to the study of Jewish history by means of the biographies of its great men, an apostolical succession, as it were. Under the class-names there given, the names of all persons of each class will be found grouped in the index. Again, if it is desirable to trace out a topic, as, for instance, the development of Hebrew grammar, or the cultivation of medicine among Jews, etc., the index is helpful by means of its lists of names of grammarians, physicians, astronomers, historians, poets, etc., under these and similar heads.

To be continue in this ebook..................................................................................