ebooks Goddess on the Frontier: Religion; Ethnicity; and Gender in Southwest China by Megan Bryson in History

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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 ReichAs 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 important work of historical restoration; Amos Elon takes us back to the beginning; chronicling a period of achievement and integration that at its peak produced a golden age second only to the Renaissance.Writing with a novelist's eye; Elon shows how a persecuted clan of cattle dealers and wandering peddlers was transformed into a stunningly successful community of writers; philosophers; scientists; tycoons; and activists. He peoples his account with dramatic figures: Moses Mendelssohn; who entered Berlin in 1743 through the gate reserved for Jews and cattle; and went on to become "the German Socrates"; Heinrich Heine; beloved lyric poet who famously referred to baptism as the admission ticket to European culture; Hannah Arendt; whose flight from Berlin signaled the end of the German-Jewish idyll. Elon traces how this minority-never more than one percent of the population-came to be perceived as a deadly threat to national integrity; and he movingly demonstrates that this devastating outcome was uncertain almost until the end.A collective biography; full of depth and compassion; The Pity of It All summons up a splendid world and a dream of integration and tolerance that; despite all; remains the essential ennobling project of modernity.