Books like Zionism — picked by fans

Tragic, comic, and utterly honest, this bestselling and critically acclaimed work is at once a family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history. It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the forties and fifties, in a small apartment crowded with books in twelve languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. The story of an adolescent whose life has been changed forever by his mother's suicide when he was twelve years old. The story of a man who leaves the… show more.

A race for the Ark of the Covenant finds an exploration into the ethics and world of the international antiquities trade. When a great antiquities collector is forced to donate his entire collection to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Nili Broshi sees her last chance to finish an archeological expedition begun decades earlier a dig that could possibly yield the most important religious artifact in the Middle East. Motivated by the desire to reinstate her father s legacy as a great archeologist after he was marginalized by his rival, Nili enlists a ragtag crew a religious nationalist and his band… show more.

Zionism emerged at the end of the nineteenth century in response to a rise in anti-Semitism in Europe and to the crisis of modern Jewish identity. This novel, national revolution aimed to unite a scattered community, defined mainly by shared texts and literary tradition, into a vibrant political entity destined for the Holy Land. However, Zionism was about much more than a national political ideology and practice. By tracing its origins in the context of a European history of ideas and by considering the writings of key Jewish and Hebrew writers and thinkers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the… show more.

In East Jerusalem Noir―published simultaneously with West Jerusalem Noir―the Akashic Noir Series turns its gaze to one of the world's most fascinating locales, in this volume from the perspective of Palestinian writers; translated from Arabic

In 1880 the Jewish community in Palestine encompassed some 20,000 Orthodox Jews; within sixty-five years it was transformed into a secular proto-state with well-developed political, military, and economic institutions, a vigorous Hebrew-language culture, and some 600,000 inhabitants. The Origins of Israel, 1882-1948: A Documentary History chronicles the making of modern Israel before statehood, providing in English the texts of original sources (many translated from Hebrew and other languages) accompanied by extensive introductions and commentaries from the volume editors.

This sourcebook assembles a diverse array of 62 documents, many of them unabridged, to convey the ferment, dissent, energy, and anxiety that… show more.

Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict provides a comprehensive, balanced, and accessible introduction to the multi-faceted history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Smith’s widely respected analysis examines how underlying issues, group motives, religious and cross-cultural clashes, diplomacy and imperialism, and encroaching modernity shaped this volatile region. The book’s narrative and supporting documents, maps, photographs, and chronologies consider high and low politics with perspectives from all sides of the struggle, while the final chapters include the latest developments.

Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba - the catastrophe that led to the displacement and expulsion of more than 700,000 people - and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers capture and rape a young Palestinian woman, and kill and bury her in the sand. Many years later, a woman in Ramallah becomes fascinated to the point of obsession with this 'minor detail' of history. A haunting meditation on war, violence and memory, Minor Detail cuts to the heart of the Palestinian experience… show more.

Raja Shehadeh is a passionate hill walker. He enjoys nothing more than heading out into the countryside that surrounds his home. But in recent years, his hikes have become less than bucolic and sometimes downright dangerous. That is because his home is Ramallah, on the Palestinian West Bank, and the landscape he traverses is now the site of a tense standoff between his fellow Palestinians and settlers newly arrived from Israel.

In this original and evocative book, we accompany Raja on six walks taken between 1978 and 2006. The earlier forays are peaceful affairs, allowing our guide to meditate… show more.

Under the Israeli occupation of the '70s and '80s, writers in Gaza had to go to considerable lengths to ever have a chance of seeing their work in print. Manuscripts were written out longhand, invariably under pseudonyms, and smuggled out of the Strip to Jerusalem, Cairo or Beirut, where they then had to be typed up. Consequently, fiction grew shorter, novels became novellas, and short stories flourished as the city's form of choice. Indeed, to Palestinians elsewhere, Gaza became known as 'the exporter of oranges and short stories'. This anthology brings together some of the pioneers of the Gazan short… show more.

In The Making of a Human Bomb, Nasser Abufarha, a Palestinian anthropologist, explains the cultural logic underlying Palestinian martyrdom operations (suicide attacks) launched against Israel during the Al-Aqsa Intifada (2000-06). In so doing, he sheds much-needed light on how Palestinians have experienced and perceived the broader conflict. During the Intifada, many of the martyrdom operations against Israeli targets were initiated in the West Bank town of Jenin and surrounding villages. Abufarha was born and raised in Jenin. His personal connections to the area enabled him to conduct ethnographic research there during the Intifada, while he was a student at a… show more.