In Ishmael's House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands by Martin Gilbert
David J Goldberg finds that a study of Jews under Muslim rule suffers from its broad-brush approach
 David J Goldberg , The Guardian, Saturday 28 August 2010

The mayor of Jerusalem’s Jewish quarter is escorted to Arab Legion HQ, 1948. Photograph: John Phillips/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image

The feared doyen of Judaic scholars in the US is Professor Jacob Neusner, an abrasive curmudgeon who, to borrow football manager Sir Alex Ferguson's description of an opposition player, could start a fight in an empty room. Wikipedia credits him with the authorship or editorship of 950 books – a stat that has prompted a joke about a student who knocks on his door, asking to see the professor. "You can't," says Neusner's wife. "He's writing a book." "That's alright," replies the student. "I'll wait."

In this country Sir Martin Gilbert – urbane, charming, helpful; the official biographer of Winston Churchill and a member of the Iraq inquiry panel – is the polar opposite of Neusner in personality and reputation, but for sheer fecundity he is a potential challenger. He has over 80 books to his name and, one senses, more to come.

Neither a brash TV personality nor a young turk revisionist, Gilbert writes broad-brush narrative history of the old-fashioned kind. By now his method is well rehearsed: a balanced overview is produced, based on exhaustive research of all the available material, and then illuminated with individual case stories or a telling quotation. It is a technique that proved popular in his books about the Holocaust, the state of Israel and Churchill. Now he brings it to bear on the history of Jews in Muslim lands.

Perhaps that well-oiled modus operandi is why there is a sense Gilbert is going through the motions here. He dedicates In Ishmael's House, somewhat preciously, to the 13 million Jews and 1,300 million Muslims in the world "in the hope that they may renew the mutual tolerance, respect and partnership that marked many periods in their history". In truth, however, there is little fresh to be said about that long and complex relationship because it has all been covered before by more specialist scholars. Gilbert simply quotes his sources and summarises their conclusions, without attempting to offer many of his own.

The full review at The Guardian.

IN ISHMAEL'S HOUSE, A HISTORY OF JEWS IN MUSLIM LANDS
by Martin Gilbert (Yale University Press, Pounds 25)

and

Rabbi David J Goldberg's To the Promised Land: A History of Zionist Thought was recently reissued by Faber Finds.