The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History

摘要

Covering the period from Cromwell's Readmission of Jews to Britain in 1656, this dictionary is actually closer to a biography with the vast majority of entries dedicated to people rather than important events, places, subjects, etc., making it a kind of British historical "Jews Who's Who". Its coverage does not quite extend to the present day as advertised, with the editors admitting as much in their introduction (a problem they hope to address in later editions, they write with bullishness). Intended as a first point of reference for historical research and cited as a "companion" piece to a (presumably unpublished) work by Joe Hillaby covering the medieval period, this book would certainly be a useful addition to university libraries' collections, if not "essential" on account of its questionable organization and necessarily selective coverage. Although its 1,061 pages belies the editors' claims of length being a constant concern, many too-brief entries bring it to the fore; the entry for Antisemitism in Britain is just over a page long, for example, and the many London boroughs with large Jewish communities are all lumped into a single "London" entry. While relatively lengthy, such entries seem cursory, highlighting the dictionary's biographical priorities.