*Jewish Emancipation: A History Across Five Centuries*

That is the new and excellent book out by David Sorkin.  I feel I have read many good books on Jewish history, and I don’t always see the marginal value of adding to that pile, but this one really delivered.  Plenty more detail without losing any conceptual overview.  Ever wonder what exactly happened to Jewish emancipation, and why, as the Napoleonic conquest of Europe was reversed?  This is the place to go.  By the way, in the middle of the eighteenth century there were more Jews in Curacao, Suriname and Jamaica than in all of the North American colonies combined.

You can order it here, worthy of my year-end “best non-fiction of the year” list.