“Award-winning Columbia University historian Schama . . . brings to bear his gift for synthesizing mountains of information into a well-crafted, accessible narrative in this impressive volume that spans nearly 2,500 years and serves as a companion volume to a PBS series.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A multifaceted story artfully woven by an expert historian.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Schama has written an unconventional but masterful and deeply felt history of his people…” — Booklist (starred review)
“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.” — New York Times
“In his brilliant new history of the Jews, the unconventional scholar somehow manages to be simultaneously sentimental and subversive, consensual and contrarian - and we readers are the beneficiaries.” — Haaretz (English edition)
“Mr. Schama’s history flashes by with entertaining velocity…” — Wall Street Journal
“An energetic cascade of prose and erudition, rife with pointillist detail and witty colloquialisms…” — Chicago Tribune, Printers Row
“Schama writes history from below, and from the middle and other unexpected angles, resurrecting the unrecorded and long-forgotten, and analyzing the social and cultural forces that shaped his subjects’ lives… [he] has pulled it off with opinionated flair and literary grace.” — New York Times Book Review
“Stirring and fascinating” — Los Angeles Times
“Schama is a historian of prodigious and varied gifts. He can take a specific subject and drill deep; he can take a wide-angled view of many countries over long periods of time. He does both in this excellent first volume… Revealing and moving.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“Reading Schama is like sitting across from the world’s most dazzling dinner party guest…” — Seattle Times
“The story that Schama tells is wide-ranging, well documented, delightful, amusing, personal, and inspring…” — New York Review of Books