Leslie Stein, recently retired as a professor at Macquarie University in Australia, has written an impressive trilogy that chronicles the history of Israel. In this final volume in the series, Stein examines Israel’s military engagements, but does not stop there: he provides an in-depth picture of the country’s economic development and an analysis of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority. He considers the influence of Israeli Arabs as well as the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, the ultra-Orthodox, and other radical Jewish movements. He also discusses the immigrants from Russia and Ethiopia and their quests to fit into Israeli society. This is a clearly written, objective look at Israel today in all of its complexity and diversity. Anyone interested in modern history will learn a great deal by reading it.
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