A history of Zionism / Walter Laqueur ; with a new preface by the author.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Laqueur, Walter, 1921-2018.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Zionism--History.

Zionism.

History.

Physical Description:

xxviii, 639 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Schocken Books : Distributed by Pantheon Books, [2003]

Summary:

The definitive general history of the Zionist movement, by one of the most distinguished historians of our time.

Walter Laqueur traces Zionism from its beginnings -- with the emancipation of European Jewry from the ghettos in the wake of the French Revolution -- to 1948, when the Zionist dream became a reality. He describes the contributions of such notable figures as Benjamin Disraeli, Moses Hess, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, and Sir Herbert Samuel, and he analyzes the seminal achievements of Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weitzmann, and David Ben Gurion. Laqueur outlines the differences between the various Zionist philosophies of the early twentieth century -- socialist, Communist, revisionist, and cultural utopian -- and he discusses both the religious and secular Jewish critics of the movement. He concludes with a dramatic account of the cataclysmic events of World War II, the clandestine immigration of Holocaust survivors, the tragic missed opportunities for co-existence with both the Arab residents of Palestine and those in the surrounding countries, and the struggle to forge a new state on an ancient land. Laqueur's new preface analyzes the present-day difficulties, and places them into a fascinating and valuable historical context.

Contents:

1 Out of the Ghetto 3

2 The Forerunners 40

3 Theodor Herzl 84

4 The Interregnum 136

5 The Unseen Question 209

6 Building a New Society: The Progress of Left-Wing Zionism 270

7 In Blood and Fire: Jabotinsky and Revisionism 338

8 Zionism and Its Critics 384

9 The Weizmann Era 441

10 European Catastrophe 505

11 The Struggle for the Jewish State 564

Conclusion: Thirteen Theses on Zionism 589.

Notes:

Reprint, with new introd. Originally published: New York : Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1972.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 601-615) and index.

ISBN:

0805211497

OCLC:

52381659