''The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words, 1000 BCE–1492 CE'' is a book by the British historian Simon Schama, which is being published in three volumes. The first volume, entitled ''Finding the Words, 1000BCE – 1492CE'', was published in the United Kingdom by The Bodley Head in September 2013. The second volume, entitled ''Belonging: The Story of the Jews, 1492–1900'', was published by The Bodley Head in October 2017. A television series, based on the book, was broadcast in the United Kingdom on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

in September 2013 and in the United States on PBS in March and April 2014.

Reception

In his review of the first volume for '' The New York Times'',

Dwight Garner Dwight Garner (born January 8, 1965) is an American journalist and longtime writer and editor for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, he was named a book critic for the newspaper. He is the author of ''Garner's Quotations: A Modern Miscellany'' and ...

wrote:

"Mr. Schama's 'The Story of the Jews' is exemplary popular history. It's engaged, literate, alert to recent scholarship and, at moments, winningly personal... Mr. Schama is Jewish, but not especially religious... His loyalty is obviously to the hard evidence. At the same time, he declares that "the ' minimalist' view of the Bible as wholly fictitious, and unhooked from historical reality, may be as much of a mistake as the biblical literalism it sought to supersede."

Former

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...

, Rowan Williams, who reviewed ''Belonging'' for the '' New Statesman'', described it as "immensely erudite – and compulsively readable" and said: "The importance of Schama's book is that it forces the reader to think about how the long and shameful legacy of Christian hatred for Jews is reworked in 'enlightened' society".

References

External links

Presentation by Schama on ''The Story of the Jews'', March 27, 2014

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...

2013 non-fiction books 2017 non-fiction books Books by Simon Schama English-language books English non-fiction books History books about Jews and Judaism Non-fiction books adapted into television shows The Bodley Head books {{jewish-hist-book-stub

Reception

See also

References

External links