The Golden Age Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780691160740)

A major history of the shtetl's golden age

The shtetl was home to two-thirds of East Europe's Jews in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, yet it has long been one of the most neglected and misunderstood chapters of the Jewish experience. This book provides the first grassroots social, economic, and cultural history of the shtetl. Challenging popular misconceptions of the shtetl as an isolated, ramshackle Jewish village stricken by poverty and pogroms, Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern argues that, in its heyday from the 1790s to the 1840s, the shtetl was a thriving Jewish community as vibrant as any in Europe.

Petrovsky-Shtern brings this golden age to life, looking at dozens of shtetls and drawing on a wealth of never-before-used archival material. Illustrated throughout with rare archival photographs and artwork, this nuanced history casts the shtetl in an altogether new light, revealing how its golden age continues to shape the collective memory of the Jewish people today.

Author: Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern
ISBN-10: 0691160740
ISBN-13: 9780691160740
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Language: English
Published: 03/30/2014
Pages: 448
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.69lbs
Size: 9.52h x 6.43w x 1.21d
Award: National Jewish Book Award - Winner
Award: PROSE - Honorable Mention

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 02/03/2014
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2014
Library Journal 05/01/2014 pg. 89
New York Times Book Review 07/27/2014 pg. 15
Choice 01/01/2015 pg. 872