In this magnificently illustrated cultural history—the tie-in to the PBS and BBC series The Story of the Jews—Simon Schama details the story of the Jewish experience, tracing it across three millennia, from their beginnings as an ancient tribal people to the opening of the New World in 1492 to the modern day.

It is a story like no other: an epic of endurance against destruction, of creativity in oppression, joy amidst grief, the affirmation of life against the steepest of odds.

It spans the millennia and the continents—from India to Andalusia and from the bazaars of Cairo to the streets of Oxford. It takes you to unimagined places: to a Jewish kingdom in the mountains of southern Arabia; a Syrian synagogue glowing with radiant wall paintings; the palm groves of the Jewish dead in the Roman catacombs. And its voices ring loud and clear, from the severities and ecstasies of the Bible writers to the love poems of wine bibbers in a garden in Muslim Spain.

In The Story of the Jews, the Talmud burns in the streets of Paris, massed gibbets hang over the streets of medieval London, a Majorcan illuminator redraws the world; candles are lit, chants are sung, mules are packed, ships loaded with spice and gems founder at sea.

And a great story unfolds. Not—as often imagined—of a culture apart, but of a Jewish world immersed in and imprinted by the peoples among whom they have dwelled, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, from the Arabs to the Christians.

Which makes the story of the Jews everyone's story, too.

西門·沙瑪勛爵 Simon Schama，生於1945年，猶太裔英國人，英國著名曆史學傢、學術明星、哥倫比亞大學曆史學教授、藝術史教授。他先後在劍橋大學、牛津大學、哈佛大學任教，自1993年至今在哥倫比亞大學曆史係任教。他編寫並主持過數十本暢銷著作及紀錄片。西門·沙馬教 授的作品曾獲眾多奬項，包括：沃夫森曆史奬、W.H.史密斯文學奬、全美書評人協會奬、艾美奬等重量及奬項。《猶太人的故事：尋找失落的字符（公元前1000年—公元1492年）》獲得塞繆爾·約翰遜奬(Samuel Johnson Prize)，該奬項是英國針對非小說類圖書設立的地位最高的一個奬項。

譯者 黃福武，山東大學猶太教與跨宗教研究中心教授，山東大學齣版社編審，《猶太研究》主編。黃教授的文章曾在《山東大學學報》《當代世、界社會主義問題》《文匯讀書周報》《中華讀書報》等發錶。譯作包括《猶太教審判》《簡明猶太民族史》《猶太教：一種文明》《終止閤法化賄賂》等。