Under Crescent and Cross:
The Jews in the Middle Ages
Mark R. Cohen

Winner of the 1994 National Jewish Honor Book in Jewish History
One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Books of 1994

Paper | 1995 | This edition is out of print | ISBN13: 978-0-691-01082-3
Cloth | 1994 | This edition is out of print | ISBN13: 978-0-691-03378-5
304 pp. | 6 x 9

Did Muslims and Jews in the Middle Ages cohabit in a peaceful "interfaith utopia?" Or were Jews under Muslim rule persecuted, much as they were in Christian lands? Rejecting both polemically charged "myths," Mark Cohen offers a systematic comparison of Jewish life in medieval Islam and Christendom--the first in-depth explanation of why medieval Islamic-Jewish relations, though not utopic, were less confrontational and violent than those between Christians and Jews in the West.

Reviews:

"Cohen's is a polemical text in the best sense of the word: it tries to open debate, not stifle it, and asks questions where they are traditionally shouted away. . . . A reassuringly balanced and judicious assessment of Jewish life in the Middle Ages."--Andre A. Aciman, New York Newsday

"Cohen's concern in this important new book is with a historiographically far more interesting and useful question [than the debate over the Jewish experiences in the medieval worlds of Christendom and Islam]: why the difference? . . . Cohen's argument is buttressed with an impressive range of evidence drawn from both Jewish and non-Jewish sources in the Islamic and Christian worlds."--David Wasserstein, The Times Literary Supplement

"Cohen advances our knowledge through a fine treatment of the huge literature and the application of social anthropological theory. Scholars will welcome the sound synthesis; general readers will appreciate the lucid style."--Library Journal

Table of Contents

This book has been translated into:

• French
• Hebrew

Other Princeton books by Mark R. Cohen:

• The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena's Life of Judah.
• Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt.
• Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages.
• The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages: An Anthology of Documents from the Cairo Geniza.

Subject Areas:

• Mind, Body, Spirit
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Art and Architecture
• Jewish Studies

Hardcover published in 1994

A Selection of the History Book Club and the Jewish Book Club

Prices subject to change without notice

File created: 11/5/2009

Questions and comments to: webmaster@press.princeton.edu
Princeton University Press