Non­fic­tion

A His­to­ry of the Jews in the Mod­ern World

Howard M. Sachar
  • Review
By – March 30, 2012
The emi­nent Jew­ish his­to­ri­an Howard M. Sachar has returned to his roots for his sev­en­teenth book: a com­pre­hen­sive sur­vey of mod­ern Jew­ish his­to­ry. The book is both less and more than what it appears to be. At its core it is a thor­ough­ly rewrit­ten ver­sion of Sachar’s ear­li­er The Course of Mod­ern Jew­ish His­to­ry (which first appeared in the late 1950’s). Sachar has not only added sec­tions that bring Jew­ish his­to­ry to the end of the 20th cen­tu­ry, but he has revised much of his pre­vi­ous text in light of new schol­ar­ship. Par­tic­u­lar­ly impres­sive is Sachar’s attempt to rein­te­grate the mod­ern his­to­ry of Sephar­di and Latin Amer­i­can Jew­ry into the main­stream of his nar­ra­tive. This is a use­ful book, ency­clo­pe­dic in scope but eas­i­ly read.
Abra­ham J. Edel­heit is an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of his­to­ry at Kings­bor­ough Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege (CUNY) and the author, co-author, or edi­tor of eleven books on the Holo­caust, Zion­ism, Jew­ish and Euro­pean his­to­ry, and Mil­i­tary affairs. His most recent pub­li­ca­tion appeared in Armor mag­a­zine, the offi­cial jour­nal of the US Army Armor and Cav­al­ry Command.

Discussion Questions