"Over the course of a distinguished #journalistic career, #NicholasLemann has #written #books on American meritocracy (“The Big Test,” 1999), capitalism (“Transaction Man,” 2019), the black migration to the industrial North (“The Promised Land,” 1991) and the racial terrorism that plagued Reconstruction (“Redemption,” 2006).

“Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries” is a more personal project. Here the #NewYorker staff #writer and emeritus dean at #ColumbiaJournalismSchool turns his lens on himself and his prosperous #Louisiana-based family of merchants, plantation owners and lawyers, embedding them in the #history of the #American #South and of #German #Jewish #immigration and #assimilation. The panoramic view and shifting of perspectives broaden the #book’s interest but detract from its focus.

The search for identity and community does give this sprawling, ruminative memoir a thematic unity."

https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/returning-review-jewish-roots-in-the-south-294d4c34