New Book: Schama's Story of the Jews

Studying Judaism? Here's a new book by Simon Schama called, The Story of the Jews, 1000 BCE to 1492.  It will come out in the US this Spring with a series from the BBC airing on PBS.

Schama is a British historian who teaches at Columbia University.  He is most well known for his book on the French Revolution called, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. He has also written widely about art. But this book covers the major events in Jewish history from the beginning to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in the late 15th century.

Here is an interview about the book and BBC series that Shchama gave Christina Amanpour earlier this week.

Here some links to reviews of the book from several British newspapers.

• Here is an excerpt from the book from The Telegraph
• A review in The Independent, in which the reviewer questions Schama's style: " ..the book reveals a surprising lack of consistency. The writing style ranges from high seriousness to Woody Allen."  
• Here is a favorable review from The Guardian and an interesting story about Schama in another issue of the Guardian.