Abstract
Based initially on a work of 1938, The Jew in the Medieval World by Jacob Marcus, a work revised in 1999, this is an important book reflecting Marc Saperstein’s extensive recasting of Marcus’s focus. In particular, the entire focus is now on Christian Europe, such that the Islamic world is excluded. In addition, there is a reconsideration of the internal dynamics of Jewish life. Marcus had implied that there was a normative model of Jewish thought and behaviour, with everything else falling under the rubric of schism or heresy. Saperstein, however, rejects the implication that mysticism is a deviant, sectarian phenomenon, indeed presenting this implication as a legacy of nineteenth-century German Jewish scholarship. In the new book, there has also been a modification of the translations and an upgrading of both annotations and bibliographies. A worthy new edition.