One of the great histories of the Jews of Eastern Europe is Simon Dubnow's History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. This three-volume work, which was published in 1918, has been republished by Avotaynu as a single 600-page volume.

Dubnow was considered to be one of the greatest Jewish historians of the 20th century, and History of the Jews in Russia and Poland was one of his most important works. It details the history of the Jews of Eastern Europe from their earliest presence in Greek times to about 1910. Discussed are the Khazars, the Crusades, the rise of Polish Jewry under the early kings of Poland, the Cossack rebellion of 1648, the rise of Hasidism, the false Messiahs, the creation of the Pale of Settlement, and Jewish life under the laws created by the czars, and the pogroms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.