Glick, Leonard B. Abraham's Heirs: Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe. Syracuse Univ. Dec. 1998. c.328p. index. ISBN 0-8156-2778-5. $49.95; pap. ISBN 0-8156-2779-3. $24.95.
[HISTORY]

Glick's examination of the social experience of Jews living among Christians in medieval Europe is fascinating. A social historian and anthropologist at Hampshire College, Glick looks at the "ways in which European Jewish culture, identity, and experience were molded in the crucible of western Christendom." He believes modern-day Jewish "cultural psychology" arose from "a patterned set of behavioral dispositions and values, reflecting the historical experience and adaptive strategies of Ashkenazic Jewry" in the Franco-German region. (Glick's account is unique in that he intentionally overlooks Jewish Spain, a popular focus of other scholars.) The Crusades, the Jews' relegation from merchants to moneylenders, and Jewish settlement in and subsequent expulsion from England allow Glick to realize his hypothesis. Glick makes this history come alive. An excellent choice for academic, seminary, and public libraries.

Kevin M. Roddy, University of Hawai'i at Hilo