AN ORPHAN IN HISTORY One Man’s Triumphant Search for His Roots <i> by Paul Cowan (Anchor: $9.95) </i>

Village Voice reporter Paul Cowan traces his efforts to reclaim the heritage his Jewish ancestors sacrificed in their effort to be assimilated into the American “Melting Pot” during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As he follows the branches of his family tree, he finds himself drawn into the conflict between the descendants of the German and Eastern European Jews and their differing traditions. But the real object of Cowan’s search is not his ancestry, but a way to reconcile the ancient traditions of Judaism with the exigencies of daily urban life. A warm, intensely personal book, “Orphan in History” is marred only by the writer’s overly long and worshipful portrait of his father, former CBS president Louis G. Cowan.