Originally published in 1960, and the first of three volumes on the history of the Jews during the dispersal, this book covers briefly the period from the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70 down to Hadrian's suppression of Simeon's insurrection in 135. It sketches the political and religious background to the conflict between the Jewish and Graeco-Roman cultures, and the final separation of the Christian religion from its original Judaic stock; it vividly describes the general historical events involving the homeland of the Jews and portrays the principal characters in the struggle between them and the Empire, especially the insurrectionist leader Simeon Bar-Cochbar, the Son of a Star himself.