From the acclaimed biographer, screenwriter, and novelist Frederic Raphael, here is an audacious history of Josephus (37–c.100), the Jewish general turned Roman historian, whose emblematic betrayal is a touchstone for the Jew alone in the Gentile world.
Joseph ben Mattathias’s transformation into Titus Flavius Josephus, historian to the Roman emperor Vespasian, is a gripping and dramatic story. His life, in the hands of Frederic Raphael, becomes a point of departure for an appraisal of Diasporan Jews seeking a place in the dominant cultures they inhabit. Raphael brings a scholar’s rigor, a historian’s perspective, and a novelist’s imagination to this project. He goes beyond the fascinating details of Josephus’s life and his singular literary achievements to examine how Josephus has been viewed by posterity, finding in him the prototype for the un-Jewish Jew, the assimilated intellectual, and the abiding apostate: the recurrent figures in the long centuries of the Diaspora. Raphael’s insightful portraits of Yehuda Halevi, Baruch Spinoza, Karl Kraus, Benjamin Disraeli, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Hannah Arendt extend and illuminate the Josephean worldview Raphael so eloquently lays out.
- Arab American Heritage Month
- Past Long Island Reads Picks
- National Autism Awareness Month
- National Poetry Month
- Passover
- Earth Day
- Blake Crouch: Dark Matter and More
- She doesn't even go here!: For fans of Mean Girls
- April Showers Bring May Flowers
- Not Just Another Teen Book- YA for Adults
- Retro Reads - Books from the 1900s
- New eBook additions
- Page to Screen
- See all
- Arab American Heritage Month
- Past Long Island Reads Picks
- National Autism Awareness Month
- Earth Day
- Poetry Is Meant To Be Spoken
- National Poetry Month
- She doesn't even go here!: For fans of Mean Girls
- April Showers Bring May Flowers
- Page to Screen
- Not Just Another Teen Book- YA for Adults
- Retro Reads - Books from the 1900s
- New audiobook additions
- Now Available! Popular Audiobooks You May Have Missed
- See all
- #ownvoices / Diverse Books
- Antiracism Resources
- Sheet Music & Song Books
- Bücher auf Deutsch / Books in German
- Civil Service Test Prep
- The Great Courses
- QuickReads Collection
- See all