Some time ago an elderly Indian friend of Martin Gilbert's, known to him as Auntie Fori, revealed that she was actually Jewish and asked him to recommend a history of the Jews. He decided to write it for her, in letter form, week by week. This book is the result. The letters begin with Abraham's journey from Mesopotamia to Canaan and cover all the great events of Jewish history: the migration to Egypt, entering the Promised Land, Moses and the Ten Commandments, the kingdoms of David and Solomon, the Assyrian destruction of Jewish independence, and so on through ancient and medieval times up to the present day. As one would expect, he writes particularly well - and movingly - about the Holocaust. The last couple of letters in this selection are about the modern state of Israel.