A Jew among Romans: the Life and Legacy of Flavius Josephus / Frederic Raphael 336 pp.

I knew very little about Josephus before reading this; I know a very little bit more now.  In the run-up to the fall of  Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, Josephus, of a prominent Jerusalem family, led the defense of towns surrounding Jerusalem.  Through a combination of courage, quick wits, and luck, Josephus survived these conflicts, was taken captive, and managed to become an interpreter and (sort of) kingmaker for the up-and-coming Vespasian.  Once on the throne, Vespasian made Josephus a free man and an advisor, and Josephus spent his remaining days chronicling the downfall of Jerusalem and the dispersion of his people, who no longer recognized him as one of their own.

Josephus' status as a man without a country, a consummate assimilator and survivor who in all likelihood never stopped grieving the community he lost, is a fascinating subject.  It's too bad, then, that this book was mostly an excruciating slog.  Each and every page contained 10-20 lines of footnotes, many of them interesting, most of them nonessential, and all of them disruptive to the flow of the text.  This is bad enough; worse is Raphael's meandering, musing style.  It's certainly true that issues of Jewish exile and assimilation echo throughout history and into the present day and it is valuable to examine more contemporary comparisons to Josephus' life and circumstances.  And it is inarguable that Christians persecuted Jews.  But it is hard to see why, in ostensibly looking at the life of a man who died a full 200 years before Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, that this particular drum needs to be banged every few pages.  It's true and it's important, and it belongs in another book.  Poor Josephus mostly disappeared; as I said I learned disappointingly little about him.