Jewish lives

Louis D. Brandeis served on the Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939. A critic of what he called "the curse of bigness" in business and government, Brandeis wrote the most important Supreme Court opinions about free speech, freedom from government surveillance, and freedom of thought and opinion. Rosen provides a passionate argument for why Brandeis can teach us about historic and contemporary questions.

Behind the scenes at the legendary Warner Brothers film studio, where four immigrant brothers transformed themselves into the moguls and masters of American fantasy Warner Bros charts the rise of an unpromising film studio from its shaky beginnings in the early twentieth century through its ascent to the pinnacle of Hollywood influence and popularity. The Warner Brothers-Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack-arrived in America as unschooled Jewish immigrants,...

"In a brief life that led to a violent end, Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel (1906-1947) rose from desperate poverty to ill-gotten riches, from an early-twentieth-century family of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side to a kingdom of his own making in Las Vegas. In this captivating portrait, author Michael Shnayerson sets out not to absolve Bugsy Siegel but rather to understand him in all his complexity. Through the 1920s, 1930s, and most of...

An insightful new biography of the central figure in the Dreyfus Affair, focused on the man himself and based on newly accessible documents

On January 5, 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus's cries of innocence were drowned out by a mob shouting "Death to Judas!" In this book, Maurice Samuels gives readers new insight into Dreyfus himself—the man at the center of the affair. He tells the story of Dreyfus's early life in Paris, his...