Israel: a history
Description
“The most comprehensive account of Israeli history yet published.” — The Sunday Telegraph
“An epic history . . . a picture of an Israel that persevered and prevailed, that was determined to survive and was unwilling to trust its independence to others but sought peace whenever possible.” — Foreign Affairs
Israel is a small and relatively young country, but since the day of its creation more than half a century ago, its turbulent history has placed it squarely at the center of the world stage. For two millennia the Jews, dispersed all over the world, prayed for a return to Zion. Until the nineteenth century, that dream seemed a fantasy, but then a secular Zionist movement was born and soon the initial trickle of Jewish immigrants to Palestine turned into a flood as Jews fled persecution in Europe.
From these beginnings, preeminent historian Martin Gilbert traces the events and personalities that would lead to the sudden, dramatic declaration of Statehood in May 1948. From that point on, Israel’s history has been dominated by conflict: Suez, the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the Lebanon and the Intifada.
Using contemporary documents and eyewitness accounts, and drawing on his own intimate knowledge of the country and its people, Martin Gilbert weaves together a riveting, page-turning history of a powerful and proud nation, from the struggles of its pioneers in the nineteenth century up to the present day.
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From the Book - Revised and updated edition.
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Published Reviews
Booklist Reviews
Renowned for documentary diligence more than compositional flair, historian Gilbert chronicles the story of modern Israel. Considering the surrounding publicity (from advertising and an author tour) and the fact that publication coincides with Israel's fiftieth anniversary of statehood next May, casual readers may be surprised by the laconic prose, by its lack of life. For example, Gilbert almost never characterizes the personalities that march through Israel's history, from its Zionist inspirer Theodor Herzl to founder David Ben-Gurion to its current leader Benjamin Netanyahu. For instance, Gilbert states that the latter was wounded in action and lost a brother in the Entebbe rescue--but refrains from analyzing such traumas, which perhaps would make for richer understanding of current events. Instead, Gilbert puts his stock in a meticulous recitation of chronology, creating a manual of facts. (This effect is buttressed by the book's 43 maps.) Even this method, though, steadily constructs an unlikely story, the founding of a Jewish homeland out of almost nothing but faith, ingenuity, and courage. Gilbert recounts the deeds of the original Zionists, the origin of the Balfour Declaration, the early waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine in the 1920s, and the settlement of individual kibbutzim. Presenting such discrete facts, or listing who or how many died in one Arab attack or another over the decades, supplies the subtext to Gilbert's principal narratives of the five wars Israel has fought since 1948. Constituting a baseline of information, Gilbert's accurate narrative provides a reliable primer for studying Israel's pains and triumphs. ((Reviewed February 1, 1998)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews
Library Journal Reviews
From Churchill's official biographer: a 50th-anniversary history of Israel. Copyright 1998 Library Journal Reviews
Publishers Weekly Reviews
Gilbert's impassioned history adds immeasurably to our understanding of the forces that have shaped contemporary Israel. Digging up a wealth of primary source material and quoting liberally from letters, memoirs, eyewitness accounts, interviews, memoranda and diaries of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, Abba Eban, Shimon Peres, Teddy Kollek and dozens of ordinary people, the eminent British historian (The Holocaust) has produced a gripping epic. Gilbert's extensive behind-the-scenes and on-the-battlefield coverage of Israel's numerous wars with its Arab neighbors adds much new detail. While the narrative focuses predominantly on politics, high-level diplomacy and war, it also illuminates other topics, including the Jewish settlement of Palestine in the early years of this century, tensions between secularists and Orthodox Jews, Israeli military intelligence operations, the current impasse in negotiations with Palestinian Arabs and the ferment of Israeli society, which Gilbert portrays as a diverse mixture of immigrant peoples that embody many different strands of Judaism yet are united by Israeli culture. Photos. Author tour. (Apr.)