"Zeitlin successfully sums up extensive and detailed historical data while keeping them within a framework of the ideas he seeks to get across." Insight Turkey "Of Jewish histories there is no shortage. But this remarkable book offers history from the critical perspective of sociology - itself critically examined in the light of history. In short, an intellectual feast." Norman Miller, Trinity College, Hartford "This comprehensive study provides a profound discourse on the meanings and boundaries of 'Diaspora' as a central dimension of Jewish history. The author launches his historical tour of diverse Jewish religious, social, geographical, political and cultural communities with a probing "genealogy" of the very concept of Diaspora, including contemporary theories." Frederick M. Denny, University of Colorado at Boulder "A prominent sociologist employs the concepts of his discipline to write diaspora Jewish history, as the story of national-religious Jewish peoplehood. Zeitlin shows that separate accounts of Jews living in different nations often miss the real connections in Jewish history." Jacques Kornberg, University of Toronto