The Washington Post Notable Non-Fiction of 2013 On the seventy-fifth anniversary of Kristallnacht comes this untold story of a teenager whose act of defiance would have dire international consequences. On the morning of November 7, 1938, a seventeen-year-old Jewish refugee, Herschel Grynszpan, walked into the German embassy in Paris and in an act of desperation assassinated Ernst vom Rath, a low-level Nazi diplomat. He did it, he said, out “of love for my parents and for my people.” Two days later, vom Rath lay dead, and the Third Reich exploited his murder to inaugurate its long-planned campaign of terror against Germany’s Jewish citizens, in the mass pogrom that became known as Kristallnacht. In a bizarre concatenation of events that would rapidly involve Ribbentrop, Goebbels, and Hitler himself, Grynszpan would become the centerpiece of a Nazi propaganda campaign that would later describe his actions as "the first shot of the Jewish War." In The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan, best-selling author Jonathan Kirsch brings to light this wrenching story, reexamining the historical details and moral dimensions of one of the most enigmatic cases of World War II. Was Grynszpan a crazed lone gunman, or was he an agent of the Gestapo, recruited to provide a convenient pretext for a major escalation of Nazi aggression? Was he motivated by a desire to strike a blow for the Jewish people as an early partisan fighter, or did his act of violence speak to an intimate connection between the assassin and his target, as Grynszpan later claimed?In re-creating the life of this German-Polish refugee turned assassin, Kirsch convincingly demonstrates that the life of Herschel Grynszpan remains just as fascinating as the conspiracy theories that surround him. Challenging the perception of the European Jew as docile and unwilling to resort to violence in the face of aggression, Grynszpan was almost unanimously assailed by most German Jews, who were rightly fearful that the Nazis would use the murder to wreak widespread retribution. Yet he was at the same time embraced by the American journalist Dorothy Thompson, who rallied others to his international defense. Condemned by the likes of Goebbels at the time, he was still labeled as a "psychopath" and an agent provacateur by Hannah Arendt at the Eichmann trial two decades later.As Kristallnacht increasingly becomes known as an international day for remembrance, Jonathan Kirsch brilliantly succeeds here in illuminating both a single life cast into the shadows of history as well as the "countless tragic lives of Eastern European Jews in the terrible days leading up to World War II." 8 pages of photographs

Product Description: The Grand Inquisitor’s Manual by nationally bestselling author Jonathan Kirsch is a provocative popular history of the Inquisition, the 12th century reign of church-sanctioned terror. Ranging from the Knights Templar to the first Protestants, from Joan of Arc to Galileo, The Grand Inquisitor’s Manual is a fascinating and sobering study of the torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of “heretics” in God’s name—the original blueprints for persecution originally drafted in the Middle Ages but followed for centuries afterwards, up to and including the “advanced interrogation methods” recently employed at Guantanamo Bay...read more

Product Description: Prior to 1492, Jews had flourished on the Iberian Peninsula for hundreds of years. Marked by alternating cooperative coexistence and selective persecution alongside Christians and Muslims, this remarkable period was a golden age for Iberian Jews, with significant and culturally diverse advances in sciences, arts and government...read more

A law survey covers idea protection, co-authorship, copyright, the role of the agent, book publishing contracts, manuscript preparation, electronic rights, remaindering, and public domain

An evaluation of how the Book of Revelation has significantly influenced history and the modern world cites its place at the heart of culture wars between governments and religions, discussing such topics as how it was nearly cut from the New Testament, the role of the book in the fall of the Roman Empire and the Black Death, and its use in the establishment of foreign policy. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

Examining the roots of religious extremism, the author of The Woman Who Laughed at God describes the struggle between monotheism and polytheism in the ancient world, revealing the dark side of monotheism--holy war, inquistions, crusades, and martyrdom--and the brighter side of polytheism, including its emphasis on religious liberty and diversity. Reprint.

Arguing that Judaism has always been a fractured religion, the author of King David and The Harlot by the Side of the Road searches the long history of the Jewish people to find evidence to support her thesis. Reprint.

Arguing that Judaism has always been a fractured religion, the author searches the long history of the Jewish people to find evidence to support her thesis. 20,000 first printing. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Who is a Jew? In this colorful, eye-opening work, bestselling author and lecturer Jonathan Kirsch takes us on a three-thousand-year tour of Jewish identity and diversity and offers answers to this complex and difficult question. Kirsch reveals that Judaism has never been a religion of strict and narrow orthodoxy...read more

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Product Description: Lawgiver and liberator. Seer and prophet. The only human permitted to converse with God "face-to-face." Moses is the most commanding presence in the Old Testament. Yet as Jonathan Kirsch shows in this brilliant, stunningly original volume, Moses was also an enigmatic and mysterious figure--at once a good shepherd and a ruthless warrior, a spiritual leader and a magician, a lawgiver who broke his own laws, God's chosen friend and hounded victim...read more

Product Description: David, King of the Jews, possessed every flaw and failing a mortal is capable of, yet men and women adored him and God showered him with many more blessings than he did Abraham or Moses. He was the original "alpha male" and an authentic sex symbol, a ruggedly handsome man who inspired both hero worship and carnal love...read more

Using biblical texts and centuries of commentary, the author delves deeply into the life of King David--a powerful but troubled leader whose exploits made him one of the most prominant heroes in the Jewish and Christian traditions. 20,000 first printing. (view table of contents)

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Interprets the shocking tales of the Bible that have been censored and suppressed by religious authorities throughout history, places each story within the social context of its time, and shows how each may hold valuable lessons even today. Reprint.