Description
Book SynopsisThe first war between Jews and Romans (AD 66 to 74), which saw the fall of Jerusalem's temple (AD 70), is among the West's most consequential conflicts. This book revisits its context and causes, its phases and key players.
Trade Review'No study of the Jewish-Roman war approaches this one in level of sophistication, thoroughness, sweep of erudition, provocative ideas, and originality.' Erich S. Gruen, University of California, Berkeley
'This is an engagingly written, well-researched, well-argued, highly original, and provocative book. Steve Mason, by relentless examination of his literary and material evidence in essence turns upside down pretty much all received notions of 'what really happened' in the Jewish-Roman War prosecuted by Nero and then the Flavians. And as such he forces the reader to rethink the whole received historical narrative of Roman-era Judaea, the destruction of Jerusalem, and its much-studied aftermath.' T. Corey Brennan, Rutgers University, New Jersey
'In A History of the Jewish War Steve Mason has produced, on the basis of his magisterial familiarity with the writings of Josephus and other contemporary sources, the Roman world, the nature of war and the historiography of war, and modern scholarly literature, and with an insistence upon the distinction between understanding sources and reconstructing human events, a highly readable and innovative history of an axial event of the first century.' Daniel R. Schwartz, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
'Steve Mason's many perceptive arguments may or may not lead us to a new understanding of the reasons why so many Jews took up arms against Rome in 66. But his book provides a new starting point in the search for better answers to questions about a war that is not - and may never be - over.' Guy MacLean Rogers, Michigan War Studies Review
'Massively researched and carefully argued, this wonderfully well-written study offers a veritable clinic in historiography, skillfully synthesizing discussions ranging from archeology and numismatics to chronology to political science and military theory. The text brims with the authority of an expert at the height of his powers and the result is not disappointing.' Recensions
'Mason's book is a striking achievement - erudite, wide-ranging in its reference and original in its conclusions. Anyone who thought that they understood the first Jewish revolt and its causes will, after reading this book, have to be prepared to return to what they thought was familiar and think again.' Early Christianity
'… Mason shuttles easily between inquiries into the [Jewish War] and Josephus' account of it. He is also a marvelous stylist, unafraid to deploy sarcasm, humor, and other tools not often used by scholars.' James Romm, The New York Review of Books
Table of ContentsPart I. Contexts: 1. A famous and unknown war; 2. Historical evidence: understanding Josephus' Judean War; 3. Parthian saviours, sieges, and morale: ancient warfare in human perspective; Part II. Investigations: 4. Why did they do it? Circumstances, conditions, and 'causes'; 5. Nero's war I: the 'blunder' of Cestius Gallus?; 6. Nero's war II: Flavians in Galilee; 7. Flavian war I: the education of Titus; 8. Flavian war II: coins, councils, and the siege of Jerusalem; 9. Machaerus and Masada: a tale of two fortresses.
