You may not think there is new stuff to learn about Oscar Wilde, but there is - as this book proves. Michèle Mendelssohn has succeeded in throwing new light on Wilde's remarkable American lecture tour. Thoroughly researched and beautifully written, this is a valuable addition to Wildean scholarship. Gyles Brandreth, President of the Oscar Wilde Society and author of The Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries
Against the background of a reconstructed inter-state ethical code, the rise of the Hasmoneans,Judea's ruling dynasty, is given a new perspective. Doron Mendels explores how concepts such as liberty, justice, fairness, loyalty, reciprocity, adherence to ancestral laws, compassion, accountability and love of fatherland became meaningful in the relations between nations in the Hellenistic Mediterranean sphere, as well as between ruling empires and their subject states. The emerging Jewish state echoed this ethical system.