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Judaism, Schama suggests, has always been a faith of the people, rather than say, Christianity, which quickly became embroiled with the hierarchical structures of an imperial religion as its followers grew in numbers. The two religions weren't that distinct at first; during the second and third centuries, both groups lived cheek by jowl. There were even those who called themselves Jewish Christians.

But that brief harmony didn't last — the final schism came when Christianity became the state religion of imperial Rome in 380 A.D., and the myth of the beastly, Christ-killing Jew began to solidify. It was Saint Jerome who famously declared: "He that is not of Christ is anti-Christ." And so Jews continued to be a wandering tribe.

In 388 there was an epidemic mob of attacks against synagogues all over the eastern Empire and in Syria; in 1278-9 the Jews were expelled from England, accused of coin clipping; and in 1492, half a millennia of Sephardic Jewish culture in Spain was effectively ended in just a few weeks, when Jews were told to leave or face execution.

Reading Schama's heart-wrenching tales of suffering bought home an important point: the horrors of Nazism didn't spring up in isolation. It also made me think of Marx's observation that "history repeats itself, first time as tragedy, second time as farce."

This epic historical narrative is one that has already been widely covered in recent decades by writers such as Stan Mack and Paul Johnson. But Schama's prose has a melancholic music that you rarely find in historical writing. It's this ability to empathize with his narrative, rather than just coldly regurgitating the facts, that makes Schama one of the finest historians of his generation.

Those with even the slightest curiosity about history, culture, civilization, and the very human trait to survive and preserve at all costs will devour this book with the enthusiasm and fascination it rightly deserves.

Read an excerpt of The Story of the Jews

Many plans sold on the health insurance marketplaces offer a tradeoff: lower premiums in exchange for limited choices of doctors and hospitals. But consumers who opt for these plans with the idea that they'll go out of network when necessary may be taking a big financial risk.

The health law generally limits how much consumers can be required to pay out of pocket for medical care (not including premiums). In 2014, the limit for an individual plan is $6,350 and for a family plan, $12,700.

But those limits apply only to care provided by doctors and hospitals in a plan's approved network. There may be a separate out-of-pocket maximum for services provided out of the network in marketplace plans, or no cap at all, says Margaret Nowak, research director at Breakaway Policy Strategies, a research and consulting firm.

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Can A Doctor Really Demand An Extra $75 Upfront?

The marriage ends as modern marriages do, with a Complaint for Divorce and a notice from Family Court. Then comes the heart of the matter: the long back and forth between the attorneys on both sides of the case with their clients and with the court. In a brilliantly constructed series of asides and the digressions, Rieger uses notes and letters to conjure up Sophie's past as well as her client's in a neatly presented counterpoint. Mia Durkheim stands on the verge of putting her married life behind her. Sophie Diehl, her attorney, tries, with the help of an actress friend, to figure out how to handle the presence of a new man in her life.

Stories within stories add to the complication of the novel. There's the little narrative about the flirtation between Sophie's novelist mother and the managing partner of her law firm. There's the story of Sophie's actress friend and her burgeoning career. There's the bitter rivalry between Sophie and a more experienced divorce lawyer at her firm. Moreover, we get a brief course in the use of legal precedent in matters of divorce and a dramatic intertwining of the law and human feelings.

The "woe that is in marriage" remains a great subject. Working it out in what the novelist calls "Epistolary 2.0" only adds to its pleasures.

And so you sipped and examined, and appreciated the glaze of the jug those Chinese had just slapped onto their clay — how it moved across the surface, and created the occasional blob or blip. And you schmoozed about the beauty of it all. Tea, then, was far more than a drink.

"Tea becomes a place where these people of different social strata could get together and talk," Watsky says. They could "be together not to talk about war, not to talk about business, but to engage in their shared interest in this aesthetic pursuit."

And then some of them went home and wrote about it in their diaries — the date, the place, time of day, who was there, objects used, all described in great detail.

Toward the end of the 17th century Japan got tea pots, and little leaf-stuffed balls that were dunked in hot water. Tea-drinking became more widespread, and then along came teabags.

Today, the ancient rituals are still taught and observed by some. But today's Japanese are crazy for coffee, and a cult of coffee preparation has developed that's at least as complicated as the 16th century tea ceremonies.