Customer Reviews

The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom, 1000-1500 (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks)

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A great introduction to 500 years of Jewish life in Medieval Christian Europe. The book changed my view of Jewish history. I liked how the book showed that the Jews were part of Christian Europe, not "A People Apart".

There is plenty of useful and interesting information in this book, and on the whole, it's presented well. Much of the information is repeated in several places, but the author's structure makes it difficult to avoid this problem, and his structure seems adequate compared to other possible structures he might have followed.

I did constantly find myself wondering, while reading this book, what the author meant by "creativity" with reference to the Jews. He never gives anything like a definition of the term as he intends it, which makes me suspect that the author himself doesn't quite know what he means by it.

All in all, an interesting overview of exactly the subject the title suggests.