Unsettled: An Anthropology of the Jews Hardcover - 2003

by Melvin Konner

In this intellectually rich and passionately written history, anthropologist Melvin Konner takes the whole sweep of Western civilization as his canvas and onto it places the Jewish people and faith. Drawing on archaeological findings, census data, religious texts, diaries, poetry, oral histories, and more, Konner shows how the Jews shaped the world around them and how this largely hostile but at times accepting world shaped Jewish practice, culture, and success. We see how the facts of oppression and ongoing diaspora led to the rise of Jewish literacy, education, trade, and influence that continue to make their mark today.

Konner takes the reader from the pastoral tribes of the Bronze Age to enslavement in the Roman Empire, from the converses fleeing the Spanish Inquisition to eighteenth-century European villages, from the darkness of the Holocaust to the creation of Israel and the flourishing of Jews in America. The result is a unique and comprehensive portrait of the major events, people, traditions, and turning points of the Jewish people and faith. Filled with vivid images and fresh historical interpretations, Unsettled promises to take its place next to Paul Johnson's History of the Jews and Thomas Cahill's The Gifts of the Jews.