The publication of this volume marks the realization of the first stage of an ambitious project, a three-volume history of anti-Semitism. Its author, M. Léon Poliakov, has thus far been mainly concerned with contemporary problems, working at the Centre de Documentation Juive on different aspects of Nazi anti-Semitism. His new project plunges him into the field of historical research. One might add the pleasant Americanism which has now become a part of the English language—“And how!” For the range which he has proposed to cover is immense. This first volume deals with “Jews whose history unfolds exclusively within Christendom, that is, Ashkenazi Jews,” and covers the period from the beginnings of anti-Semitism up to the time of emancipation. In his second volume he proposes to turn to the Sephardim—“Jews who have lived alternately under Christian and Muslim rule or exclusively under the Muslims.” In the final volume the subject will be “the phenomenon of Jewish assimilation characteristic of the 19th century, and the recrudescence of anti-Semitism especially characteristic of our present period.”

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