Israel by Martin Gilbert

Israel by Martin Gilbert

"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.

Sir Martin Gilbert was born in England in 1936. He is a graduate of Oxford University, from which he holds a Doctorate of Letters, and is an Honorary Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. In 1962 he began work as one of Randolph Churchill's research assistants, and in 1968, after Randolph Churchill's death, he became the official biographer of Winston Churchill. Since then he has published six volumes of the Churchill biography, and has edited - to date - twelve volumes of Churchill documents. As a Distinguished Fellow at Hillsdale College, Michigan, he is currently completing the Churchill document volumes.

During forty-eight years of research and writing, Sir Martin has published eighty books, including The First World War, The Second World War, The Somme The Heroism and Horror of War, D-Day, The Day the War Ended, and a three-volume History of the Twentieth Century. He has also written, as part of his series of ten historical atlases, Atlas of the First World War, and, most recently, Atlas of the Second World War.

Sir Martin's film and television work has included a documentary series on the life of Winston Churchill. His other published works include Churchill: A Photographic Portrait, In Search of Churchill, Churchill and America, and the single volume Churchill, A Life.