Description
Book SynopsisA narrative history of modern Kabbalah, from the sixteenth century till today, in the general context of modernization. A History of Kabbalah will be interest students, scholars, and laypeople in Jewish Studies, Religious Studies, and intellectual and cultural history.
Trade Review'While the study of Kabbalah in both scholarly and popular circles remains vibrant, until now there has not been a history of Modern Kabbalah stretching from the sixteenth century. With his usual deep learning, conceptual rigor, and lucidity, Jonathan Garb offers a broad and creative rendering of how Jewish Kabbalah developed from the Lurianic circle to New Age Religion and the late modern commodification of mysticism. Garb deftly navigates through the early period to draw out the threads that will become emblematic in modernity. A major contribution to the study of Kabbalah and the History of Religions more generally.' Shaul Magid, Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College
'Jonathan Garb, a leading scholar of Jewish mysticism, offers a lucid, broad, multifaceted, benchmark account of the narrative and cultural history of modern Kabbalah from the spiritual revolution that ignited in the Galilean town of Safed in the 16th century to postmodern new-age religion … Recommended.' D. B. Levy, Choice Connect
Table of Contents1. Pre-Modern and Modern Kabbalah: Breaks and Continuities; 2. The Safedian Revolution of the Sixteenth Century ; 3. The Kabbalistic Crisis of the Seventeenth Century; 4. Canonization: The Eighteenth Century; 5. Beginnings of Globalization: The Nineteenth Century; 6. Destruction and Triumph: The Twentieth Century; 7. Recurrent Themes: Gender, Messianism and Experience?; Appendix; Glossary; Bibliography; Index
