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Title: Unsettled: An Anthropology of the Jews by Melvin Konner ISBN: 0-670-03244-1 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 25 September, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.88 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Unsettled settles many questions
Comment: It has been a long time since I have read a book which does such a good job covering such a large topic. Many of the questions I had as to how Jewish history and outlook "fit together" were answered. I would recommend this book highly for anyone trying to obtain a clear and objective history of the Jewish people and what makes them "tick."
Rating: 2
Summary: Too anecdotal, poorly written
Comment: As an avid reader of history, I purchased this book expecting a historical survey of Jewish history from an anthropolgists' point of view. It is not really a history at all, but a collection of anecdotes and interesting observations. That would be fine, if they were held together with a coherent theme. Or held together at all.
The author does not even seem able to put together a cohesive chapter. He jumps all over the place and it makes a difficult, at times painful read. It really needs an editor, and if it had one, they should be fired for poor work.
The author also makes factual mistakes. One that jumps out is a claim that only Jewish culture used the lunar calendar. This is false. China used the lunar calendar throughout its long history, right into the 20th century. I also found the survey of ancient Jewish history to be weak: no context at all is provided about the area or its people and the author's conclusions are arrived at with little supporting evidence or even argument. For example much is made of a single inscription in a stone from 1200 BC.
Overall the book is more of a personal journey by the author into his cultural roots, than it is a sytematic or well thought-out study. If you want the later, don't buy this book.
Rating: 2
Summary: Disappointing
Comment: This book could be more accurately described as a collection of essays by a scholar with specific interests in selected topics of Jewish history. The most notable omission is the lack of discussion of Jewish experience outside the Middle East except for Spain, North Africa, Ethiopia, China, and Cochin. There is nothing about the great migration of Jews into the tolerant Polish Commonwealth, so there is nothing about the role of Jews in Eastern Europe until Zionism and anti-Semitism spring up in the nineteenth century. He describes the destruction of the Jewish communities in Poland, but how did they get there and what was their anthropology? I bought the book to find out, but there was nothing. Also, his footnotes and bibliography make no reference to sources that place this vital topic in a wider historical context, as a general history of Eastern Europe or even of Jews in the Habsburg Monarchy, for example, or Russia. What is the culture that gave us Freud, Marx, and Mahler? Nothing on that. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a refuge for Jews from Western Europe. Nohting on that. This is definitely not a book for the general reader.
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Title: The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz ISBN: 047146502X Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Diaspora: Homelands in Exile (2 Volume Set) by Frederic Brenner ISBN: 0060087781 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $100.00 |
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Title: The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit by Melvin Konner ISBN: 0805072799 Publisher: Owl Books (NY) Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: After Such Knowledge: Where Memory of the Holocaust Ends and History Begins by Eva Hoffman ISBN: 1586480464 Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Liberated Bride by A.B. Yehoshua, Hillel Halkin ISBN: 0151006539 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 03 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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