In these and other stories, bestselling author Oates explores with bloodcurdling insight the ties that bind--or worse.

Historically delineates the problems of genocide as a concept in relation to rival categories of mass violence.

“A rich gift to history—and not just Jewish history—for its account not just of what Moses Montefiore did or did not do, but also of what he was.” —New Republic Humanitarian, philanthropist, and campaigner for Jewish emancipation on a grand scale, Sir Moses Montefiore (1784–1885) was the preeminent Jewish figure of the nineteenth century. His story, told here in full for the first time, is a remarkable and illuminating tale of diplomacy and adventure. Abigail Green’s sweeping biography follows Montefiore through the realms of court and ghetto, tsar and sultan, synagogue and stock exchange. Interweaving the public triumph of Montefiore’s foreign missions with the private tragedy of his childless marriage, this book brings the diversity of nineteenth-century Jewry brilliantly to life. Here we see the origins of Zionism and the rise of international Jewish consciousness, the faltering birth of international human rights, and the making of the modern Middle East. Mining materials from eleven countries in nine languages, Green’s masterly biography bridges the East-West divide in modern Jewish history, presenting the transformation of Jewish life in Europe, the Middle East, and the New World as part of a single global phenomenon. As it reestablishes Montefiore’s status as a major historical player, it also restores a significant chapter to the history of our modern world. “A masterpiece of scholarship and historical imagination.” —Niall Ferguson, New York Times bestselling author of The Square and the Tower “Entertaining.” —The Economist “A perceptive, solidly researched biography with expressive period illustrations attesting to Montefiore's global celebrity.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Deeply impressive. . . . One of the essential works on modern Jewish history.” —Tablet Magazine “Fair and illuminating.” —The Wall Street Journal

A militia attack throws an archaeologist into a world of chaos and intrigue in this gripping adventure thriller. When former MI6 agent turned archaeologist Dr. Ava Curzon is engaged by American intelligence to track down an African militia claiming to hold the Ark of the Covenant, she is plunged into a world where nothing is what it seems. Her breakneck descent into the shadowy realm of dark biblical magic hurls her across continents and into the opaque worlds of the Knights Templar, freemasons, occultists, and extremist neo-Nazis, pushing her mentally and physically to the limits. As the plot twists and turns across the centuries, she requires all her skills to solve a trail of ancient clues leading her inexorably towards a terrifying ritual. Taking center stage, she faces the ultimate battle against an age-old evil she must stop at all costs. A great choice for fans of Dan Brown and Kate Mosse. Praise for The Sword of Moses “The thinking person’s DaVinci Code.” —BBC Radio “A rollercoaster. . . . Move over Lara Croft!” —Daily Express

Collects tales of madmen, monsters, and the macabre by authors including Peter Straub, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Devereaux, Susan Fry, and Ramsey Campbell.

One man’s quest to find the oldest Bible scrolls in the world and uncover the story of the brilliant, doomed antiquarian accused of forging them. In the summer of 1883, Moses Wilhelm Shapira—archaeological treasure hunter and inveterate social climber—showed up unannounced in London claiming to have discovered the oldest copy of the Bible in the world. But before the museum could pony up his £1 million asking price for the scrolls—which discovery called into question the divine authorship of the scriptures—Shapira’s nemesis, the French archaeologist Charles Clermont-Ganneau, denounced the manuscripts, turning the public against him. Distraught over this humiliating public rebuke, Shapira fled to the Netherlands and committed suicide. Then, in 1947 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. Noting the similarities between these and Shapira’s scrolls, scholars made efforts to re-examine Shapira’s case, but it was too late: the primary piece of evidence, the parchment scrolls themselves had mysteriously vanished. Tigay, journalist and son of a renowned Biblical scholar, was galvanized by this peculiar story and this indecipherable man, and became determined to find the scrolls. He sets out on a quest that takes him to Australia, England, Holland, Germany where he meets Shapira’s still aggrieved descendants and Jerusalem where Shapira is still referred to in the present tense as a “Naughty boy”. He wades into museum storerooms, musty English attics, and even the Jordanian gorge where the scrolls were said to have been found all in a tireless effort to uncover the truth about the scrolls and about Shapira, himself. At once historical drama and modern-day mystery, The Lost Book of Moses explores the nineteenth-century disappearance of Shapira’s scrolls and Tigay's globetrotting hunt for the ancient manuscript. As it follows Tigay’s trail to the truth, the book brings to light a flamboyant, romantic, devious, and ultimately tragic personality in a story that vibrates with the suspense of a classic detective tale.

The book consists of three essays and is an extension of Freud’s work on psychoanalytic theory as a means of generating hypotheses about historical events. Freud hypothesizes that Moses was not Hebrew, but actually born into Ancient Egyptian nobility and was probably a follower of Akhenaten, an ancient Egyptian monotheist. Freud contradicts the biblical story of Moses with his own retelling of events, claiming that Moses only led his close followers into freedom during an unstable period in Egyptian history after Akhenaten (ca. 1350 BCE) and that they subsequently killed Moses in rebellion and later combined with another monotheistic tribe in Midian based on a volcanic God, Jahweh. Freud explains that years after the murder of Moses, the rebels regretted their action, thus forming the concept of the Messiah as a hope for the return of Moses as the Saviour of the Israelites. Freud said that the guilt from the murder of Moses is inherited through the generations; this guilt then drives the Jews to religion to make them feel better.