Overview

Born amidst the ruins of war out of religious hatred and economic need, the Venetian Ghetto was the first time the entire Jewish population of a city would be confined to a specified area. Forced into cramped, unsanitary conditions, its inhabitants were systematically extorted, robbed, and subjected to countless humiliating restrictions. It became the prototype for ghettos throughout Europe and inspired a more vicious and enduring form of anti-Semitism. Yet, as this book reveals, the Ghetto's story is also a testament of hope. Despite all that they faced down the centuries, its inhabitants not only survived - but thrived. The Venetian ghetto was a microcosm for both of Jewish diasporas and of huge shifts taking place across centuries and continents - and the book explores how one specific part of one specific city in Europe tells us about huge migratory shifts, about war and politics and piracy, about trade and global networks of capitalism, about the flourishing and transformation of culture and religion. Authoritative, detailed, and incomparably human, Alexander Lee's book is a comprehensive portrait of the Ghetto from the arrival of the first Jews in the Venetian lagoon to its dissolution by Napoleon - and on, down to the present day. Lee brings the Ghetto's inhabitants to life with vivid immediacy and offers both a fitting monument to the Ghetto's past - and a powerful warning to the future.

Full Product Details

9781529066500

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Reviews

Brilliantly researched and deeply moving, this history of the Jews of Venice makes a significant and much needed contribution to the city’s story -- Roger Crowley, author of <i>City of Fortune</i> Embattled and persistent, the Jewish community of Venice played a fascinatingly rich role in the city's cultural and economic life. In Alexander Lee, they have found their true and elegant historian -- Judith Mackrell, author of <i>The Unfinished Palazzo</i> Ghetto is the most accessible history of this renowned Venetian quarter. Alexander Lee combines expertise in Venetian history, with sensibility to the Jewish past, and a gift for story-telling. Highly recommended -- Professor Miri Rubin, author of <i>Cities of Strangers</i> Remarkable . . . a rollercoaster history of the ghetto * The Jewish Chronicle * In this fascinating history . . . Lee conjures the Adriatic seaport in all its strange glory . . . This admirable book offers a poignant testimony to a people who have approached annihilation many times -- Ian Thomson, <i>The Spectator</i>

Brilliantly researched and deeply moving, this history of the Jews of Venice makes a significant and much needed contribution to the city’s story -- Roger Crowley, author of <i>City of Fortune</i>

Author Information

Alexander Lee is a research fellow at the University of Warwick. He is the author of several acclaimed books, most recently the critically acclaimed Machiavelli: His Life and Times. He writes a regular column for History Today, and has contributed articles on a wide variety of historical and cultural subjects to the Sunday Telegraph, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, the New Statesman, the Times Literary Supplement, the Atlantic, and Dissent.

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