Benjamin Ivry

The deeply personal reflections of a giant of Jewish history. Scholar Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (1932–2009) possessed a stunning range of erudition in all eras of Jewish history, as well as in world history, classical literature, and European culture. What Yerushalmi also brought to his craft was a brilliant literary style, honed by his own voracious reading from early youth and his formative undergraduate studies. This series of interviews paints a revealing portrait of this giant of history, bringing together exceptional material on Yerushalmi’s personal and intellectual journeys that not only attests to the astonishing breakthrough of the issues of Jewish history into “general history,” but also offers profound insight into being Jewish in today's world.

The consistent wit and charm of the music of Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), has often led to an underestimation of its value, yet there is now a growing recognition of his stature. His music is simple and direct, and neither rhythmically nor harmonically innovative, but he was a distinguished and inventive melodist. In Ivry's biography, Poulenc's work is dicussed in the context of his homosexuality and against the colourful background of Paris in the first half of the century. His love affairs with working-class men and his sensitivity about his role in the wartime occupation of France have been somewhat obscured; in this fresh and amusing biography, however, the author uses recently published documents to shed new light on the composer and the man, and presents a three-dimensional portrait of this complex and sometimes contradictory composer.