Nathan the Wise

Nathan the Wise (originally written in German) is a play by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. It is a plea for religious tolerance, and its performance was forbidden by the church during Lessing's lifetime and later by the Nazis.

RONALD SCHECHTER is associate professor of history at the College of William and Mary, where he teaches a wide variety of courses in European history. He received his doctorate from Harvard University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Heidelberg. Professor Schechter is the author of Obstinate Hebrews: Representations of Jews in France, 1715-1815 (2003) and the editor of The French Revolution: The Essential Readings (2001). He has published articles in Past and Present, Representations, Eighteenth-Century Studies, and Historical Reflections/Reflexions historiques and is the early modern Europe section editor for History Compass."