Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History

Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History by Steven Zipperstein, 261 pages.
The 1903 pogrom in a not-so-remote Russian town became a much larger story than other racially charged massacres of that time and place. Communications had sped up, and Kishinev was close enough to Europe that reporters could make their way there.  The stories that came out of the violent episode varied wildly. The town's newspaper publisher, apparently one of the main authors of the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and, obviously, a raving anti-semite, helped fan the flames of local rage by spreading rumors of blood-libel. Michael Davitt and Hayyim Nahman Bialik were sent in to cover the pogrom by Jewish newspapers, but Bialik ended up composing a poem that became one of the most enduring accounts with his poem, "In the City of Killing.",
Zipperstein debunks the long-held myth that the Jews of the town were too passive to fight back and tells the story of 250 people who gathered and fought off their neighbors over the course of the three-day pogrom.