Leslie Stein

Gebundenes Buch

The Making of Modern Israel

1948-1967

Beschreibung

On May 14, 1948 the State of Israel was declared, announced by David Ben-Gurion at a small gathering that assembled in the main hall of the Tel Aviv Art Museum. Within a time frame of only nineteen years, culminating in the Six-Day War, Israel fought three separate wars. But within its first four years, thanks to mass immigration, its population doubled. Furthermore, Israel had been confronted with acute economic difficulties, intra Jewish ethnic tensions, a problematic Arab minority and a secular-religious divide. Apart from defence issues, Israel faced a generally hostile or, at best, indifferent international community rendering it hard pressed in securing great power patronage or even official sympathy and understanding. Based on a wide range of sources, both in Hebrew and English, this book contains a judicious synthesis of the received literature to yield the general reader and student alike a reliable, balanced, and novel account of Israel's fateful and turbulent infancy.

Autor

Leslie Stein is Senior Research Fellow at Macquarie University.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: John Wiley & Sons / Polity Press
• Seitenzahl: 340
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. April 2009
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 233mm x 162mm x 45mm
• Gewicht: 772g
• ISBN-13: 9780745644660
• ISBN-10: 074564466X
• Artikelnr.: 26057162

Rezensionen

"The deeper into the twenty-first century we get the less we know about the twentieth. This ignorance has so distorted even educated people's grasp of the conflict between Israel and its Palestinian and other Arab neighbors that public discussion of it routinely descends into half-bias, half-drivel. Leslie Stein's elegant and learned book is, first of all, truthful, a rare enough quality in this research area. Beyond that, it is well-written and argumentative in the sense that his topic requires. The years 1948-1967 constitute the crucible of discord. Without a clear understanding of these two decades, which this volume so amply provides, the citizen is in the desert with only mirages to (mis)lead him."
-- Martin Peretz,

editor-in-chief, New Republic

"Continuing his masterful previous history of Israel before statehood, Leslie Stein tells the complicated story of the state's first twenty years in this highly readable, admirably concise, and eminently fair-minded account. Threading his way deftly through controversial minefields with sure footing, Stein manages to convey the best up-to-date scholarship with unusual clarity. The book is strongly recommended for the general reader seeking a reliable overview of this critical period, and as an excellent introductory text for the classroom."
-- Alan Dowty, University of Notre Dame

"No country, it can fairly be said, has experienced so great a set of obstacles as has Israel. With great verve and a robust appreciation for the Zionist achievement, Leslie Stein accurately captures the drama, excitement, and danger of the fledgling Jewish state's first two decades, thus putting its current tribulations in perspective."
-- Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum (Pennsylvania) and Taube/Diller distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University

"Anyone who wants to find the way through the internal politics and external wars that accompanied the state of Israel in its early and formative years can rely on Professor Stein. He gives it straight. This ought to become a standard work on the emergence of Israel to the place it holds on the international scene."
-- David Pryce-Jones, former senior editor of the National Review, one time literary editor of the Financial Times and of the Spectator and author of The Closed Circle

"The Making of Modern Israel is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of one of history's most extraordinary and inspiring stories. Leslie Stein is to be commended for authoring what is certain to become an indispensable resource for scholars, decision-makers, and students."
-- Michael B. Oren, senior fellow at the Shalem Center