THE JEW WHO WOULD BE KING
This vivid reconstruction of one man’s life reveals the harsh realities and moral ambiguities of colonial power. The Jew Who Would Be King tells the story of Nathaniel Isaacs—a nineteenth-century British Jew who helped establish the Zulu kingdom only to become a ruthless warlord and slaveholder. Isaacs’ thrilling journey begins with his shipwreck on the shores of Zululand and proceeds to ports across West Africa, including Freetown, Sierra Leone. There, tasked by the colonial governor to end the local slave trade, Isaacs brokered deals that reinforced his own power.
Adam Rovner's meticulous archival research in England, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and St. Helena, coupled with his own travels to the remnants of Isaacs’ island stronghold in Guinea, brings this complex figure to life. Through Isaacs’ story, Rovner exposes the entangled forces of Jewish emancipation and antisemitism, slavery and abolition, the stark dichotomies of civilization and “savagery,” and the creation of whiteness versus Blackness.
IN THE SHADOW
OF ZION
In the Shadow of Zion brings to life the amazing true stories of six exotic visions of a Jewish national home outside the biblical land of Israel. Israel’s successful establishment has long obscured the fact that eminent Jewish figures, including Zionism’s prophet, Theodor Herzl, seriously considered settling enclaves beyond the Middle East. Christians and Jews, authors and adventurers, politicians and playwrights, and rabbis and revolutionaries all worked to carve out autonomous Jewish territories across the globe in remote and often hostile locations, including Angola, Kenya, Madagascar, Suriname and Tasmania. The would-be founding fathers of these imaginary Zions dispatched scientific expeditions to these far-flung regions and filed reports on the dream states they planned to create. But only Israel emerged from dream to reality.
Provocative, thoroughly researched, and written to appeal to a broad audience, In the Shadow of Zion offers a timely perspective on Jewish power and powerlessness.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam Rovner is Professor of English and Jewish Literature and serves as Director of the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver, where he has taught since 2008. He received his MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1998) and a PhD from Indiana University-Bloomington (2003). Professor Rovner was selected as a Davis Fellow in the Department of English at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2015-2016). He has published academic work on literature and history in leading journals and scholarly volumes. His general interest articles have appeared in numerous outlets, including History Today (UK), American History, World Literature Today, and Words Without Borders. Rovner is the author of two acclaimed books, In the Shadow of Zion (NYU, 2014) and The Jew Who Would Be King (UC Press, 2025).
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