Book Review of Elukin, Living Together, Living Apart

Book Review of Elukin, Living Together, Living Apart
3-4 pages, double spaced, Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins
One of the goals of this course is to increase your ability to read, analyze, and critique secondary historical
works. Early in the semester, we will read Jonathan Elukin’s Living Together, Living Apart. Elukin has a
provocative argument about the nature of Jewish-Christian relations in Europe during the Middle Ages that flies
in the face of most historians’ views of pre-modern European societies. In this review you will need to
effectively identify Elukin’s specific thesis, the kind of evidence he uses to support it, and the way that he crafts
his arguments throughout different chapters of his book. You will also evaluate the strength of Elukin’s work,
perhaps raising some critiques about holes or blind spots in the book. Doing this assignment will make you a
more discerning reader and help you to learn more about the methods contemporary historians use when they
write about the past.