The Golden Age of Italian Jews: 1848 - 1938

TK-page paperback / 5.5" x 8.5" / ISBN 9781589882058
Publication Date: 8/12/2025 (available for preorder)

The Golden Age of Italian Jews covers nine decades, 1848-1938, during which Italian Jews rose from the ghetto to acquire full civil rights and eventually occupy commanding positions in Italian society. Never more than one tenth of one percent of the total Italian population, Jews became army generals, mayors of major cities, prime ministers, foreign secretaries, and high-ranking university professors.

Segrè describes what made this meteoric rise possible, explaining how Jews negotiated their futures with a three step process:  seizing opportunities to gain acceptance, excelling in their trades and professions, and reaching a point of assimilation into the fabric of society. By the early twentieth century, Jews were integral to Italian life, but all of their progress came to a sudden cataclysmic end in 1938 with the arrival of fascism. 

This story, interspersed with illustrative anecdotes, includes several from the author’s family. One revolves around the author’s great-grandfather Marco Treves, who was born in 1814. He became an architect, a career path previously closed to Jews, and he worked in Rome and Paris before settling in Florence. There, ever a pious Jew, he reached the pinnacle of his career, designing the city’s grand new synagogue and cemetery. His favorite daughter, the author's grandmother Amelia Treves Segrè, was caught in a 1943 roundup by Nazi soldiers in Rome, and she died in Auschwitz.

The dramatic rise and brutal fall of Italian Jews covers the full arch of their golden age.  It is a story full of great successes and horrendous tragedies.  

PRAISE FOR GENO SEGRE'S OTHER BOOKS:

"Fans of pop science and history will thoroughly enjoy this entertaining and accessible biography of a scientist who deserves to be better understood.”
―Publishers Weekly, starred review, on The Pope of Physics

 "A balanced portrait, rich in revealing anecdotes."
―Booklist, starred review, on The Pope of Physics

"An assured and informative biography of the pioneering nuclear scientist."
―New York Times Book Review on The Pope of Physics

"[A] fascinating story, insightfully told and consistently engaging."
―San Francisco Chronicle on Faust in Copenhagen

"Cracking good narrative history."
―Time on Faust in Copenhagen

"[A] fascinating dual biography."
―The Wall Street Journal on Ordinary Geniuses

Gino Segrè has authored five books on the history of science: A Matter of Degrees (2002), Faust in Copenhagen (2007), Ordinary Geniuses (2011), The Pope of Physics (2016) with Bettina Hoerlin, and Unearthing Fermi’s Geophysics (2021) with John Stack. The Pope of Physics was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice and named a Best Book of the Year by Bloomberg; Faust in Copenhagen was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. Segrè was born in Florence, Italy and raised there and in New York City. He is a professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania, and he lives in Philadelphia.