Jacob's Cane : A Jewish Family's Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore - A Memoir in Five Generations

by New, Elisa

• ISBN13: 9780465015252
• ISBN10: 0465015255
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-09-21
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

Drawn to an image of her great-grandfather's ornately carved cane, scholar Elisa New embarked on a journey to discover the origins of her precious family heirloom. Treading back across the paths of her ancestors, she travels from Baltimore to the Baltic to London in order to find and understand an immigrant world profoundly affected by modern German culture, from the Enlightenment through the Holocaust. Deeply ambitious in its narrative sweep,Jacob's Canecaptures the rich texture of life on several continents as New's family searches to establish itself in the tobacco trade. A fascinating history of one family's story of progress, innovation, and struggle,Jacob's Canewill change the way we think about the Jewish American experience.

Author Biography

Elisa New is professor of English and American literature and language at Harvard University. She is the author of The Line’s Eye and The Regenerate Lyric. She lives with her husband, economist Larry Summers, in Brookline, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Initials	p. 5
From Shavli, in Lita	p. 21
From the River Bug to Riga	p. 41
The Free Hanseatic City of Balt-ee-mewer	p. 67
That Bewitching Vegetable	p. 81
What Is to Be Done?	p. 97
Beautiful Machines	p. 123
What She Wears, What he Wears	p. 139
The Social-eest	p. 163
Mother Earth	p. 183
The Arcadia Works	p. 203
Jacob's Cane	p. 223
Blitzkrieg Barbarossa	p. 249
Yellow Star, Gold Star	p. 271
Epilogue We Expand from Shrinking	p. 303
Acknowledgments	p. 313
Selected Further Readings	p. 319
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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