JEWS IN SERVICE TO THE TSAR - Tecno-Libro

Benjamin Disraeli advised, &ldquo.Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.&rdquo. With . Jews in Service to the Tsar , Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe&rsquo.s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history. The 28 individuals profiled in these pages are bound by a single thread: each served a Russian tsar, emperor, or empress sometime between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. Beyond that, they were an exceptionally diverse lot &ndash. in addition to businessmen, diplomats, scholars, and doctors, there was a police chief, one of Russia&rsquo.s most effective ministers of finance, and two very different &ldquo.court jesters.&rdquo. Taken together, their influence on the course of Russian history was profound. Berdnikov&rsquo.s book, which has enjoyed