Amos Elon: 5 books

Founder: A Portrait of the First Rothschild and His Time by Amos Elon (52,000 words and 51 illustrations) In this short biography of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), historian and journalist Amos Elon describes how the founder of the Rothschild dynasty started out by dealing in rare...

“Superb… The first critical analysis of Israel written from within... It's a deliberate act of self-awareness, exploring how a people got where they are.” — ***Time*** “The most illuminating, even-handed, candid appraisal of the contemporary Jewish condition yet to appear” — ***Newsweek*** “[A]...

A contemplation of the fabled city which for the Western mind is as much a myth as a physical reality. Amos Elon’s elegant, dazzling biography of Jerusalem gives a profound insight into the kaleidoscopic culture of this magical city. Battle-scarred from four thousand years of violent conflict, the...

From an acclaimed historian and social critic, a passionate and poignant history of German Jews from the mid-eighteenth century to the eve of the Third Reich As it's usually told, the story of the German Jews starts at the end, with their tragic demise in Hitler's Third Reich. Now, in this...

Born in Budapest to a well-to-do assimilated Jewish family, Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) and his family moved to Vienna when he was 18. He studied law before he began writing plays and pieces of journalism. Herzl became the Paris correspondent for Vienna’s leading newspaper, the Neue Freie Presse,...