The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History [Hardcover]

Zvi Ben-Dor Benite is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. He is the author of The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China.

"An interesting and at times even a fascinating read into the efforts of many people over many centuries to rediscover, reclaim, and even restore lost Israel."--BYU Studies Quarterly

"This book constitutes a sophisticated, often riveting meditation on those who have dreamed about, sought after, investigated, and longed for the ten Israelite tribes deported (according to the biblical account) by the Assyrians in the eighth century B.C.E. to a remote
location, after which they disappeared from human knowledge. More than a history of fantasy, however, Zvi Ben-Dor Benite's survey brings together the variegated odalities--religious, political, scientific, and literary--in which such fixations have played themselves out."--American Historical Review

"Writing a 'world history' on this scale demands enviable linguistic and interdisciplinary skills, which Zvi Ben-Dor Benite has in abundance. ...The Ten Lost Tribes [is] an exhilarating venture in intellectual history ...[A] readable and enjoyable book." --Books & Culture

"Readers will marvel at how belief in the lost tribes benefits the ambitions of British imperialists and at how it has guided modern Israeli leaders in shaping their country's repatriation policies. Scholarship of exceptional breadth, certain to attract a diverse readership." --Booklist

"The story of the lost tribes of Israel has been told before, but never placed so successfully within the context of global history. Zvi Ben-Dor Benite's exceptional scholarly range, combined with his exquisite sensitivity to the relationship between presence and absence, promise and loss, will appeal to anyone fascinated with the ways myth-history and myth-geography function in the real time and real space of world events." -- John Gillis, Professor Emeritus of History, Rutgers University

"From the Book of Isaiah to the Book of Mormon, the loss and recovery of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel were lamented and celebrated. This quintessential episode of loss sounded a leitmotiv in Jewish and Christian imaginations, and informed a western knowledge of world geography, real and imagined, from Biblical to modern times. This is the fascinating story told in this erudite and sweeping book." -- R. Po-chia Hsia, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Asian Studies, Pennsylvania State University

"Readers of this book are in for a treat." --Abraham D. Lavender