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Schechter's book represents a significant contribution to the history of French Jewry during the century connecting the French Enlightenment to the Napoleonic Empire. It also enhances our understanding of the French Jewish experience. Schechter (College of William and Mary) asks three main questions. First, to what degree did French thinkers and politicians discuss Jews during this period? Second, why was there so much interest in a politically weak and numerically insignificant minority? Finally, how did French Jews view themselves? The author explores these issues from a cultural standpoint, culling impressions of Jews from literary, political, and liturgical sources. He concludes that gentiles perceived Jews as obstinate and resistant to change, and employed these images as vehicles for discussing broader social, economic, and political issues. Consequently, in the fervor of the Revolution and its aftermath, efforts to assimilate French Jews became attempts to "convert" Jews to French civil religion rather than to Christianity. French Jews, however, interpreted their environment through a specifically Jewish lens, aligning perceptions of France with Jewish values and practices. They did not, Schechter writes, assimilate into France as much as they "assimilated France into themselves." ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, and faculty. J. Haus University of North Carolina at Greensboro