Inventing New Beginnings

Inventing New Beginnings

Inventing New Beginnings is the first book-length study to examine the conceptual underpinnings of the "Jewish Renaissance," or "return" to Judaism, that captured much of German-speaking Jewry between 1890 and 1938. The book addresses two very fundamental, yet hitherto strangely understated, questions: What did the term "renaissance" actually mean to the intellectuals and ideologues of the "Jewish Renaissance," and how did this understanding relate to wider currents in European intellectual and cultural history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? It also addresses the larger question of how we can contemplate "renaissance" as a mode of thought that is conditioned by the consciousness and experience of modernity and that extends to our present time.

Inventing Wine: A New History of One of the World's Most Ancient Pleasures

"Meticulously researched history…look[s] at how wine and Western civilization grew up together." —Dave McIntyre, Washington Post Because science and technology have opened new avenues for vintners, our taste in wine has grown ever more diverse. Wine is now the subject of careful chemistry and global demand. Paul Lukacs recounts the journey of wine through history—how wine acquired its social cachet, how vintners discovered the twin importance of place and grape, and how a basic need evolved into a realm of choice.

The New History of Inventions and Origins