Description:
In this first volume of his magisterial work, Shmuel Feiner charts the twisting and fascinating world of the 18th century from the viewpoint of the Jews of Europe. From the religious and cultural revolution of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) to the question of whether Jews could be citizens of any nation, Feiner presents a board view of how this century of upheaval altered the map of Europe and the Jews who called it home.
Review Quotes:
"Shmuel Feiner gives us a capacious and methodologically innovative volume on the "modernity" of the Jewish eighteenth century by juxtaposing myriad events across disparate regions recounted through a captivating panoply of personalities."--David Sorkin, Lucy G. Moses professor of Jewish history at Yale University
"Shmuel Feiner has synthesized the work of the best modern scholars of a half-century of European Jewish history and combined it with his own, original research, to tell the story of a period little known to non-specialists. The result is a narrative that is as authoritative as it is entrancing."--Allan Arkush, Jewish Review of Books
"Extraordinarily erudite and compulsively readable, this book transforms everything we thought we knew about the Jewish eighteenth century. A remarkable achievement."--Yair Mintzker, Princeton University