Reviews
"A highly enjoyable and surprisingly positive account of how Jewish culture helped shape European history and vice versa." The Sunday Telegraph "An outstanding survey. . . . Kriwaczek tracks the origins, flowering, and destruction of this unique, vibrant, and tenacious culture with a fine mixture of pride, regret, and eloquence." Booklist "Evocative and precise. . . . An enjoyable narrative that captures the intricacies of a very complicated history." Publishers Weekly "Informative and very entertaining . . . conjures up and re-creates baroque images and marvelous set pieces of feverish activity, long lost towns and shtetls [as well as] wonderful pictures of lost communities of Jews." The Irish Times, "A highly enjoyable and surprisingly positive account of how Jewish culture helped shape European history and vice versa." The Sunday Telegraph "An outstanding survey. . . . Kriwaczek tracks the origins, flowering, and destruction of this unique, vibrant, and tenacious culture with a fine mixture of pride, regret, and eloquence." Booklist "Evocative and precise. . . . An enjoyable narrative that captures the intricacies of a very complicated history."Publishers Weekly "Informative and very entertaining . . . conjures up and re-creates baroque images and marvelous set pieces of feverish activity, long lost towns and shtetls [as well as] wonderful pictures of lost communities of Jews."The Irish Times, "A highly enjoyable and surprisingly positive account of how Jewish culture helped shape European history and vice versa." -"The Sunday Telegraph" "An outstanding survey. . . . Kriwaczek tracks the origins, flowering, and destruction of this unique, vibrant, and tenacious culture with a fine mixture of pride, regret, and eloquence." -"Booklist" "Evocative and precise. . . . An enjoyable narrative that captures the intricacies of a very complicated history."-"Publishers Weekly" "Informative and very entertaining . . . conjures up and re-creates baroque images and marvelous set pieces of feverish activity, long lost towns and shtetls [as well as] wonderful pictures of lost communities of Jews."-"The Irish Times", "A highly enjoyable and surprisingly positive account of how Jewish culture helped shape European history and vice versa." The Sunday Telegraph "An outstanding survey. . . . Kriwaczek tracks the origins, flowering, and destruction of this unique, vibrant, and tenacious culture with a fine mixture of pride, regret, and eloquence." Booklist "Evocative and precise. . . . An enjoyable narrative that captures the intricacies of a very complicated history."Publishers Weekly "Informative and very entertaining . . . conjures up and re-creates baroque images and marvelous set pieces of feverish activity, long lost towns and shtetls [as well as] wonderful pictures of lost communities of Jews."The Irish Times From the Trade Paperback edition., "A highly enjoyable and surprisingly positive account of how Jewish culture helped shape European history and vice versa." - The Sunday Telegraph "An outstanding survey. . . . Kriwaczek tracks the origins, flowering, and destruction of this unique, vibrant, and tenacious culture with a fine mixture of pride, regret, and eloquence." - Booklist "Evocative and precise. . . . An enjoyable narrative that captures the intricacies of a very complicated history."- Publishers Weekly "Informative and very entertaining . . . conjures up and re-creates baroque images and marvelous set pieces of feverish activity, long lost towns and shtetls [as well as] wonderful pictures of lost communities of Jews."- The Irish Times