In the aftermath of 9/11, with its attendant rise in global anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, this classic book emerges, helping to explain the marginality of the Jewish people in a new and exciting way: that marginality need not be a negative attribute; that it can be "creative" and that it is through this "creative paranoia" that the Jews have not only survived throughout the centuries, but have imaginatively contributed to the culture and fabric of the societies in which they have dwelt.