Written for lay readers and introductory college courses, The Sacred Chain focuses on how a Jewish identity and consciousness were created and shaped through thousands of years of complex development. As controversial as it is accessible, this is a thoroughly comprehensive overview of Judaism through the ages.

From the Biblical account of Jewish origins to the Jewish Reformation, from the rise of the Sephardic and Ashkenazi cultures to Jewish contributions to the arts and sciences, and from the tragedy of the Holocaust to the creation of Israel, Cantor not only recounts the remarkable history of the Jewish people, but also offers a new paradigm for its interpretation.

Norman F. Cantor (1929 - 2004) was professor emeritus of history, sociology, and comparative literature at New York University. His many books include the New York Times bestseller In the Wake of the Plague, Antiquity, The Civilization of the Middle Ages, Medieval Lives, and Inventing the Middle Ages, which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award.

"Polemical and stimulating ... an iconoclastic assault on contemporary Jewish self-imagery based on many of the latest academic studies." -- New York Times Book Review

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 10/19/1995
ISBN: 9780060926526
Pages: 512
Weight: 0.81lbs
Size: 8.01h x 5.33w x 1.17d

Review Citations: New York Times 11/26/1995 pg. 32
Library Journal 08/01/1999