[50] The Protestant clergyman and diplomat, Jacob Basnage (d. 1723), historiographer of the Netherlands, was the first to write a history of the Jews down to his own time. The means at his command were inadequate and his historical insight hazy, yet he produced a connected account, which Jost took as a guide. The second attempt of the kind was made by an American woman, a Christian, Hannah Adams of Boston (1818), who was able to use only secondary sources. Cmp. for the predecessors of Graetz, his Geschichte, XI, p. 452 ff. (American Edition, V, p. 593).
[51] Geschichte der Israeliten seit der Zeit der Makkabäer.
[52] Allgemeine Geschichte des israelitischen Volkes.
[53] His last historical work, “The History of Judaism and its Sects” (Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Sekten, 3 vols., 1857–59), Jost wrote in a different key. Influenced by Graetz’s work, he tended towards the adoption of the younger historian’s point of view.
[54] Zunz considered the attempt to write a history of the Jews premature. When he asked the question, he probably had in mind the bungling “History of the Israelites” by Dr. J. H. Dessauer (1846), and in the allusion to it, covert though it was, lay the sting.
[55] Geschichte, Vol. V (American Edition, Vol. III, pp. 188–207).
[56] Ibid., Vol. VIII (American Edition, Vol. IV, pp. 145–147, 191–193).
[57] Ibid., Vol. VIII (American Edition, Vol. IV, pp. 207–216).
[58] Ibid., Vol. IX (American Edition, Vol. IV, pp. 491–511).
[59] Cmp. Geschichte, Vol. IV, 2 Ed., Note 14.