The Jews in the Roman World

New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Fair/Fair. xv, [1], 347, [3] pages. Maps. Plan, Notes. Some Books. Tables. Index. Ink comments and marks noted. Name in ink inside front cover. DJ worn, torn, chipped, soiled and stained, with word in ink on front of DJ. Some pages have some damp rippling and staining. Cover has wear and soiling. This is a Hudson River Editions of reprints of outstanding standard works. Includes Introduction, Notes, Some Books, Tables, Index, Maps and Plan. Hudson River Editions are a series of reprints of outstanding standard titles. They include classic works of fiction, reference, biography, history, religion and philosophy, literary criticism, and natural and social sciences. Michael Grant CBE (21 November 1914 - 4 October 2004) was an English classicist, numismatist, and author of numerous books on ancient history. His 1956 translation of Tacitus's Annals of Imperial Rome remains a standard of the work. Having studied and held a number of academic posts in the United Kingdom and the Middle East, he retired early to devote himself fully to writing. He once described himself as "one of the very few freelancers in the field of ancient history: a rare phenomenon". As a popularizer, his hallmarks were his prolific output and his unwillingness to oversimplify or talk down to his readership. He published over 70 works. During World War II, Grant served for a year as an intelligence officer in London after which he was assigned (1940) as the UK's first British Council representative in Turkey. In this capacity he was instrumental in getting his friend, the eminent historian Steven Runciman, his position at Ankara University. To study the Jews in the Roman world is one of the best ways of making close contact with that world, because although the ancient Romans and the Greeks have gone forever, the Jews are still with us; in them, continuity between ancient and modern life exists for everyone to see. In describing the triangular relationship among the Jews, the Romans and the Greeks, Michael Grant treats one of the most significant themes in world history. Unlike almost all the other subject nations of the Roman empire, the Jews have survived and have maintained a religious and cultural identity that is substantially unchanged. They provide a unique bridge with the ancient world and can bring us into peculiarly close and intimate contact with life in the Roman empire. This book embraces the period in which the Jewish religion assumed virtually its final form, and in which Jews launched their two heroic, but disastrous revolts against Roman rule. This was, moreover, the time when Judaism gave birth to Christianity. Within a century after the death of Jesus, his followers had become completely independent of Judaism. Michael Grant describes the grandeur of the great multiracial Roman empire, beneath whose rule these stirring and unique developments took place.