Koestler examines the Khazars, a Turkic people whose ruling class converted to Judaism in the early Middle Ages, and argues that their descendants formed a large share of Eastern European Jewry. The book carried the "Khazar hypothesis" to a mass readership and is still cited wherever Jewish origins are debated. Readers should know the thesis has been widely challenged and is regarded by most historians and geneticists as discredited; it is included here as an influential and contested work.
Author: Arthur Koestler · Original publisher: Hutchinson (London) / Random House (New York), 1976
