"One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two sisters, eight and eleven, go missing. In the ensuing months the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women. Connected by the crime: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother. Social and ethnic tensions have long simmered...

A “masterful” history of the city and its holy wars past and present, from the New York Times–bestselling author of Constantine’s Sword (The Boston Globe).
 
How did this ancient Middle Eastern city become a transcendent fantasy that ignites religious fervor unlike anywhere else on earth? Jerusalem, Jerusalem journeys through centuries of conflict among Jews, Christians, and...

The true story of how the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw--and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Żabiński began smuggling Jews into empty cages. Another dozen "guests" hid inside the Żabińskis' villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts....

"It was love at first sight when Tembi met professional chef, Saro, on a street in Florence. There was just one problem: Saro's traditional Sicilian family did not approve of him marrying a black American woman, an actress no less. However, the couple, heartbroken but undeterred, forges on. They build a happy life in Los Angeles, with fulfilling careers, deep friendships and the love of their lives: a baby girl they adopt at birth. Eventually, they...

Esther Benbassa teaches Jewish History at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, and is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Among her books translated into English are Haim Nahum: A Sephardic Chief Rabbi in Politics, 1892-1923, and, with Aron Rodrigue, The Jews of the Balkans and A Sephardi Life in Southeastern Europe. In the first English-language edition of a general, synthetic history of French Jewry from antiquity...

"A book on how Western nations are often blamed for history's atrocities, while all nations have tarnished histories. This is a thorough argument in the defense of Western values and history"--

Best friends Ayiva and Abas live hard lives in Burkina Faso and dream of a better future that seems to await them in Europe, as evidenced by the glittering snapshots they've seen on social media of an immigrant's life abroad. Making the dangerous journey through Africa and across the Mediterranean Sea, they end up in the Italian city of Rosarno, only to lead equally hard lives of long working hours, harsh living conditions, and animosity toward them....

The history of the Jews of Spain is a remarkable story that begins in the remote past and continues today. For more than a thousand years, Sepharad (the Hebrew word for Spain) was home to a large Jewish community noted for its richness and virtuosity. Summarily expelled in 1492 and forced into exile, their tragedy of expulsion marked the end of one critical phase of their history and the beginning of another. Indeed, in defiance of all logic and expectation,...

"Borderland tells the story of Ukraine. A thousand years ago it was the center of the first great Slav civilization, Kievan Rus. In 1240, the Mongols invaded from the east, and for the next seven centuries, Ukraine was split between warring neighbors: Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Austrians, and Tatars. Again and again, borderland turned into battlefield: during the Cossack risings of the seventeenth century, Russia's wars with Sweden in the eighteenth,...

"Upon its first publication, A Different Mirror was hailed by critics and academics everywhere as a dramatic new retelling of our nation's past. Beginning with the colonization of the New World, it recounts the history of America in the voice of the non-Anglo peoples of the United States---Native Americans, African Americans, Jews, Irish Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and others---groups who helped create this country's rich mosaic culture....