On reading Goitein's A Mediterranean Society: a view from economic history

Goitein's A Mediterranean Society is widely praised but often misread. It is regarded as a monumental accomplishment of compilation and organization, but a book that is only a compendium of details without an argument. This article shows that it is instead a collection of brilliant syntheses and hypotheses, and that the absence of an over-arching thesis reflects not a lack of interest or thought, but tensions in the author's arguments and counter-arguments, particularly about the nature of Jewish-Muslim interaction. The article closes with suggestions for how to read or re-read the work to appreciate both richness and contradiction.

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