LITTMAN European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550-1750

By Jonathan I. Israel

Book Overview

This survey history of Jewish life and culture in early modern Europe is the first to focus on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a radically new phase in Jewish history. The book lays particular emphasis on the reversal of trends in western and central Europe in the late sixteenth century, which was followed by a rapid increase in Jewish numbers and activity, and far-reaching reorganization of Jewish society and institutions. A major consequence of these changes was a much expanded and more varied Jewish role in European civilization as a whole.

The first edition of this book was the joint winner of the Wolfson Literary Prize for History in 1986. For this third edition, the book has been updated and includes a new introduction.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1874774420
• ISBN13: 9781874774426
• Release Date: February 1998
• Publisher: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Very interesting

What I learned from this book is that Jewish culture, as I have come to understand it now, was not a product of Western European socio-geographical historical idiosyncracies. This book details how Jewish people were forced to leave their homes in Spain, Portugal and increasingly all Western European countries. Two migration flows seem to have occurred: one into Northern Eastern Europe, one to the East of the Mediterranean. That is apparently where a major condensation of Jewish culture occurred. Other very interesting insights I gained deal with the role of money in medieval Europe, the stifling role of the Catholic church, the importance of kings and other absolute rulers, pathways of commerce and the role of old cities. Highly interesting.