Inhalt: | Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- ONE. Creating a Collector -- TWO. Politics, Patronage, and Paper: Books and Broadsides as Political Objects -- THREE. Collecting, Recording, and Practical Knowledge -- FOUR "To Make Books Without End": From the Library to the Printing Press -- FIVE. Endorsing and Incriminating: Oppenheim and Approbata in the Court of Opinion and the Courts of Law -- EPILOGUE AND CONCLUSION. The Library Moves On -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index The story of one of the largest collections of Jewish books, and the man who used his collection to cultivate power, prestige, and political influence David Oppenheim (1664-1736), chief rabbi of Prague in the early eighteenth century, built an unparalleled collection of Jewish books, all of which have survived and are housed in the Bodleian Library of Oxford. His remarkable collection testifies to the myriad connections Jews maintained with each other across political borders. Oppenheim's world reached the great courts of European nobility, and his family ties brought him into networks of power, prestige, and opportunity that extended from Amsterdam to the Ottoman Empire. His impressive library functioned as a unique source of personal authority that gained him fame throughout Jewish society and beyond. His story brings together culture, commerce, and politics, all filtered through this extraordinary collection. Based on the careful reconstruction of an archive that is still visited by scholars today, Joshua Teplitsky's book offers a window into the social life of books in early modern Europe |
