"In these essays Deutscher speaks of the emotional heritage of the European Jew with calm clear-sightedness. As a historian he writes without religious belief, but with a generous breadth of understanding; as a philosopher he writes of some of the great Jews of Europe: Spinoza, Heine, Marx, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, and Freud. He explores the Jewish imagination through the painter Chagall. He writes of the Jews under Stalin and of the 'remnants of a race' after Hitler; as well as of the Zionist ideal, of the establishment of the state of Israel, of the six-day war, and of the perils ahead" -- back cover.