The Invention of the Jewish People (Hebrew: מתי ואיך הומצא העם היהודי?, romanized: Matai ve’ech humtza ha’am hayehudi?, lit. 'When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?') is a study of Jewish historiography by Shlomo Sand, Professor of History at Tel Aviv University. It has generated a heated controversy. The book was on the best-seller list in Israel for nineteen weeks. An English translation of the book was published by Verso Books in October 2009. The book has also been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, French and Russian, and as of late 2009 further translations were underway. The book has drawn sharp criticism from historians and scholars for its historical inaccuracies, methodology, and overt political agenda. Martin Goodman described it as "invented history," and criticized Sand's dismissal of core sources. Israel Bartal accused Sand of projecting fringe views onto mainstream scholarship. Anita Shapira argued that Sand stretches marginal theories "to the outer limits of logic," while geneticist Harry Ostrer noted that recent DNA studies contradict the book's thesis, stating they "put the idea that Jewishness is just a cultural construct to rest." Other commentators, such as Max Hastings and Simon Schama, found the work overstated and poorly substantiated. Source: Wikipedia (en)