Salo Wittmayer Baron: Architect Of Jewish History

Book Summary

Liberles has written an excellent biography of Salo Baron, the central figure in research and teaching of Jewish history in America. The particular strength of this book is the keen analysis of the problems in historical understanding that Baron addressed, and why he came to his conclusions. An important work in the history of Jewish ideas in the twentieth century. --Arthur Hertzberg Salo Wittmayer Baron was, alongside Simon Dubnow and Heinrich Graetz, one of the three most important figures in the study of Jewish history. His sweeping, multi-volume history of Jewish life and culture covered the whole of recorded history from ancient to modern times and has been hailed as one of the most important books in the field of Jewish studies. Baron, for six decades the unchallenged symbol of Jewish studies, was, it can be argued, largely responsible for the blossoming of Jewish history as a field of study in America. In this first full-length biography of this seminal figure, the latest addition to Steven Katz's acclaimed Modern Jewish Masters series, award-winning author Robert Liberles traces the remarkable life and career of this influential man.

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