The culmination of Eliezer Schweid’s life-work as Jewish intellectual historian, this five-volume work provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary account of the major thinkers and movements in modern Jewish thought, in the context of general philosophy and Jewish social-political historical developments. A major theme of the work is the response of Jewish thought to the rise and crisis of Western humanism from the 17th through the 20th centuries.

Volume One, “The Period of the Enlightenment,” includes a methodological introduction to the larger work, as well as thorough presentations of Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Maimon, Ascher, Wessely, Schnaber and Krochmal. Capsule essays on Kant, Hegel, and Schelling highlight the issues they raise that would be of crucial importance for Jewish thought.

"Schweid introduces the reader to many writers and thinkers who pioneered a new approach toward Jewish
law and lore […]. This is a work which should be in every university and seminary library."
Morton J. Merowitz, Librarian and independent scholar, Buffalo, NY (AJL Reviews, Nov/Dec 2011)