The invention of printing created a revolution for Jews everywhere. Who could imagine at that time the extraordinary benefits that printing would bring to Jewry?

People of the Book vividly describes the invention itself, and then takes us through five hundred years of Hebrew printing, from the earliest products of fifteenth-century printers to those of modern times.

Author Akiva Aaronson introduces us to the first printed editions of the classic sefarim: Talmud, Rambam, Arba’ah Turim, Shulchan Aruch and many more. Meet the famous printers of previous generations: Soncino, Bomberg, Romm, Heidenheim, Bak and others. Visit the Jewish communities where Hebrew printing took place from its earliest days until the present: Venice, Salonika, Prague, Amsterdam, Slavita, Warsaw and Vilna, to name but a few.

Weaving lively text with over two hundred full-color photographs, People of the Book is truly a journey through time – Jewish time – over five centuries of Hebrew printing. Follow its odyssey, from persecution and censorship to survival and triumph, set against the phenomenal history of the times.