When published, this work on the Book of Lamentations opened a new wave of studies on that much neglected biblical book. After a fresh translation, followed by acute analyses of the acrostic form and literary genres, the author develops the two-fold theology of ""doom"" and ""hope"" that reverberates through the five laments composed during the exile to cope with the fall of Jerusalem. Created for public performance, the poems artfully alternate the voices of the poet and the community, personified by turns as a forlorn widow (Fair Zion) and as an afflicted man (Jacob/Israel). The book attributes the catastrophe in part to the moral and social failures of Judah's leadership, but it also finds the enormity of the suffering beyond moral or theological explanation. Norman K. Gottwald is a pioneer in the use of social science methods and models to interpret the Hebrew Bible. He taught at Columbia University, Andover Newton Theological School, and New York Theological Seminary before retiring to Berkeley, California, where he is Adjunct Professor of Old Testament at Pacific School of Religion. As visiting lecturer, he has taught on all five continents. His major works are The Tribes of Yahweh, The Hebrew Bible--A Socio-Literary Introduction, The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours, and The Politics of Ancient Israel.