A History Of The Jews -

It provides a great bridge between ancient religious history and modern political history.

Writing as a non-Jewish historian (a Catholic), Johnson is openly admiring of Jewish contributions to humanity. He views Jewish history as a "providential" story of survival. A History of the Jews

The catastrophic impact of the Shoah on world Jewry. It provides a great bridge between ancient religious

It explains how Jewish history is inseparable from the history of the world, rather than an isolated story. The catastrophic impact of the Shoah on world Jewry

Johnson organizes the history into seven distinct "parts," which makes the massive timeline easier to digest:

Johnson argues that the Jews survived because they were "the people of the book." When they lost their land, they carried their nationhood within their laws and literature.

Unlike a dry textbook, it reads like a biography of a people. It is fast-paced but dense with names and dates. 4. Why Read It?