The Ten Lost Tribes

The legendary story of the ten lost tribes of Israel has resonated among both Jews and Christians down through the centuries: the compelling idea that some core group of humanity was ''''lost'''' and exiled to a secret place perhaps someday to return triumphant. In The Ten Lost Tribes Zvi Ben-Dor Benite shows for the first time the extent to which the search for the lost tribes of Israel became over two millennia an engine for global exploration and a key mechanism for understanding the world. As the book reveals the quest for the missing tribes and the fervent belief that their restitution marked a necessary step toward global redemption have been threaded through countless historical moments--from the formation of the first ''''world'''' empires to the age of discovery and from the spread of European imperialism to the rise of modern-day evangelical apocalypticism. More than a historical survey of an enduring myth The Ten Lost Tribes offers a unique prism through which to view the many facets of encounters between cultures the processes of colonization and the growth of geographical knowledge.