Books like Citizen Strangers — picked by fans

In this startling and deeply researched volume, Benny Morris shows why the war of 1948, including Israeli expulsions of Palestinian Arabs during the fighting, was not itself the cause of the Nakba, the “catastrophe,” that resulted in three-quarters of a million Palestinian stateless Palestinians. The real cause, and that which accounts for much of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as it exists today, is the decision taken after the war to bar return of the refugees to their homes. Morris shows, year by year, how that decision was brutally and systematically enforced by barriers, reprisal raids, killing zones, and forcible expulsions. No other book comes close to the detail provided here, about the early 1950s campaign against “infiltration” that doomed Palestinian refugees to generations of exile, about the thinking of the Israeli politicians, officials, and officers who designed and implemented this ruthless effort, and about its unanticipated and costly consequences.

Yoram Peri’s expertise on the historical entanglements of the military and political sectors in Israel is unrivaled.  Based on personal interviews with all major players Peri goes behind the scenes to show the real meaning of the standard Israeli formula that the “Arab problem” should be seen “through the gunsight.” He describes how different generals, even those open to an accommodation with the Palestinians and opposed to settlers, were either stymied or transformed into saboteurs of the Oslo peace process. This pattern he attributes to the hegemonic psychology, standard operating procedures, processes of socialization, and political demands, associated with the way the Israel Defense Forces are organized and integrated into Israeli politics. Particularly vivid is his portrayal of upper-echelon Israeli military frustration at its forced withdrawal from Lebanon and how that resulted in the IDF’s extraordinarily violent and destructive treatment of the Gaza Strip.

Every nationalist struggle requires effective leaders. Zionism, in particular, faced such long odds and such peculiar circumstances, that success depended not only on effective, but ruthless and single-minded leadership. In this monumental biography of David Ben-Gurion, the single most dominant individual within the Zionist movement and in the first two decades of Israel’s existence, Tom Segev shows that Zionism did have such a leader. Contrary to official hagiography, Ben-Gurion offered no brilliant or innovative ideas about politics, history, or the human condition. What he contributed was a shrewd, consuming, and merciless dedication to wresting as much of Palestine, or the Land of Israel, from its Arab inhabitants as possible without risking the state he wanted by demanding more than the world could be forced to provide. 

Ben-Gurion’s model was Lenin, his modus operandi was Bolshevik. Everything for the cause, and nothing not for the cause, at least insofar as those… show more.

Gershon Shafir’s book on the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a crucial text for all those seeking to reconstruct a history of Israel, the Zionist movement, and the encounter between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. He did the unprecedented act of actually reading and studying virtually all the diaries and journals kept, over decades, by the small but extraordinarily dedicated and articulate group of early Zionist settlers. Contrary to official myths about a visionary Zionist blueprint for building the institutions we associate with Israel, Shafir shows that the kibbutz, the Jewish National Fund, the principle of Jewish labor, and, ultimately, the idea of the kind of “Jewish state” that actually emerged, were not the cause of the confrontation with the Arabs, but a product of it. 

This brings Palestinian Arabs into the story of Zionism in the best and most responsible way—by showing how real people, confronting desperate personal… show more.

I found this book to be very insightful about the problems faced by our political system.

Sandel is spot on in explaining why democracy’s discontents have hardened into a country divided against itself. He outlines America’s civic struggles from the 1990s to the present and shows how Democrats and Republicans alike embraced a version of finance-driven globalization that created a society of winners and losers and fueled the toxic politics of our time.

Torchbearers is a pathbreaking history of the fight for American democracy during World War I, told from the perspective of African American servicemen who joined, fought, and returned from battle. Already engaged in conflict over civil rights in the US, African Americans took seriously the call to “make the world safe for democracy.” Through writing, activism, and organizing, they linked their domestic fight to the foreign fight against democracy’s enemies. Perhaps no other group in the US, Williams shows, was poised to engage the very biggest questions that animated the war – questions of citizenship, rights, freedom, and empire – as were African Americans. And their wartime service, he shows, was the crucible for the long freedom movement that followed.  

In Unequal Freedom, Nakano Glenn provides a brilliant analysis of how the multiple axes of power relations, including race, gender, and labor, have shaped the terms of citizenship in the United States. In the process, Glenn unpacks how the history of the concept of citizenship is a powerful tool for understanding the various ways power dynamics have influenced the terms of belonging to a national community. Glenn’s book is an inspiring study that has pushed me to think more deeply about the notion of citizenship and to understand that the concept of citizenship involves more than just indicating one’s nationality status. As Glenn shows, citizenship denotes a system of deeply entrenched boundaries that have determined not only who is allowed to be a member of a certain community, but also who is allowed to be an active participant in governing that community. 

Progress is never a straight line; it usually takes the form of two steps forward and one step back. As we continue to fight battles we thought we’d won, this account of the long and unsteady march toward civil rights can give us direction, inspiration, and hope.

In the late ’60s, Dan Freeman, a Black token hire at the CIA shares spy-craft with Black revolutionaries. The book may claim to be a satire, but it demands to be taken seriously. The historical implications of the novel are obvious; there are plenty of exhilarating thrills, and the writing bops with a jazz-like cool. The mystery, however, is subterranean and internal. Freeman has perfected many masks to survive in America, to infiltrate the CIA, and to earn the respect of revolutionaries. The amazing thing is that there is so much suspense in discovering which identity will truly take hold.

I had a hard time choosing which book by Richards to include, as his earlier book, Intellectual Privacy, is a superb discussion about how privacy is essential for our expression and consumption of ideas. In Why Privacy Matters, Richards broadens his focus to discuss other reasons why privacy is important. He debunks common myths, such as privacy is dying or privacy is about creepiness. In an eloquent and clear way, Richards explains why privacy matters for our identity, freedom, and protection. This book powerfully shows that how we think about privacy is essential to effectively safeguarding it. Richards writes in an engaging and accessible way, but his book has tremendous depth and insight.