Looking Backward and Forward: Rethinking Modernity in the Light of Early Modernity

Given its composite nature, The Cambridge History of Early Modern Judaism cannot easily stake out a single authoritative position on what early modern Jewish culture and society means in its totality. Taking as a whole the variegated perspectives presented elsewhere in this volume, and despite the strong hands of the editors in organizing a coherent exposition of the period, it is virtually impossible to expect one unified viewpoint to emerge. Without some notion of what the whole representes, however, one is hard pressed to suggest in what ways this epoch is continuous or discontinuous with the period that follows it — that is, the modern period itself.