Fathom – Topic – Book Reviews

Book Review | Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State

By Kyle Orton
Carter Malkasian sets out in Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State... Read more > July 2018

Book Review | Enemies and Neighbours; Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017

By Asher Susser
Ian Black has written a very well-researched, comprehensive and insightful survey of a century of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, from... Read more > Article

Book Review | Being Kurdish in a Hostile World

By Paul Iddon
Ayub Nuri was born in the wrong place, or so he likes to quip. He comes from Halabja... Read more > June 2018

Book Review | Days of the Fall: A Reporter's Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars

By Michael Stephens
An eye witness to some of the most violent episodes in the history of both Iraq and Syria,... Read more > June 2018

Book Review | In Search of Israel: The history of an idea

By Colin Shindler
The renowned sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman, a refugee from the anti-Semitic campaign in Communist Poland during the 1960s and... Read more > June 2018

Book Review | The Netanyahu Years

By Simon Smith
Part biography, part political thriller and part unflinching gaze on the decision-making processes of Israel’s political and security... Read more > May 2018

Book Review | Jews and Leftist Politics: Judaism, Israel, Anti-Semitism and Gender

By Colin Shindler
This important book is based on an international conference on Jews and the Left held in New York... Read more > February 2018

Book Review | The Endless Quest for Israeli-Palestinian Peace: A Reflection from No Man’s Land

By Lauren Mellinger
In his new memoir The Endless Quest for Israeli-Palestinian Peace: A Reflection from No Man’s Land former UN... Read more > Autumn 2017

Book Review | The Left in Disarray

By Colin Shindler
Most of the time, the key terms of the anti-capitalist Left have no clear meaning, they express and... Read more > Autumn 2017

Book Review | The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire

By Bruce Maddy-Weitzman
A book about the League of Nations, let alone one of its little known subsections, the Permanent Mandates... Read more > Autumn 2017

Book Review | All the Rivers

By Liam Hoare
It is hard to know how to talk about Dorit Rabinyan’s third novel, All the Rivers, an elegant,... Read more > Summer 2017

Book Review | Colonialism and the Jews

By John Strawson
Jews, like other peoples, have been much affected by the history of colonialism and empire. The Babylonian exile... Read more > Article

Book Review | The Shell

By Kyle Orton
In Syria, the West has been keen not to repeat the mistakes of Iraq — defined as being... Read more > Summer 2017

Book Review | Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation

By Cary Nelson
Kingdom of Olives And Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, is a... Read more > Summer 2017

Book Review | Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman

By Neill Lochery
I must warn the reader at the start of this review of a couple of personal points that... Read more > Summer 2017

Book Review | A Political Theory for the Jewish People

By Nahshon Perez
A Political Theory for the Jewish People is a fascinating book, offering a rich and nuanced discussion of... Read more > Spring 2017

Book Review | North Korea and the Middle East

By Jack May
At a recent conference Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman identified North Korea as the greatest threat to global... Read more > Spring 2017

Book review | Israel and Palestine Alternative Perspectives on Statehood

By John Strawson
It is extraordinary that 70 years after the UN partition resolution we are still discussing the future of... Read more > Spring 2017

On Chaim Gans on the Jewish Diaspora

By Michael Walzer
Fathom has invited a series of writers to respond to Chaim Gans’s A Political Theory for the Jewish... Read more > Spring 2017

Book Review | The Master Plan: ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Jihadi Strategy for Final Victory

By Kyle Orton
Brian Fishman's The Master Plan provides a comprehensive history of the Islamic State’s (IS) strategic evolution, covering the... Read more > Spring 2017

Book Review | The Resistible Rise of Benjamin Netanyahu

By Colin Shindler
Admiration and respect are not words usually attached to the persona of Benjamin Netanyahu by either friend or... Read more > Spring 2017

Book Review | Dreams Deferred: A Concise Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

By Luke Akehurst
I tried to read Dreams Deferred in the conventional style, cover to cover. Bad idea. The book isn’t... Read more > Winter 2016

Book review | A Horse Walks Into a Bar

By Liam Hoare
A Horse Walks Into a Bar, an opening line to many a haggard joke, is not necessarily what... Read more > Winter 2016

Book Review | Tragic Encounters and Ordinary Ethics: Palestine-Israel in British Universities

By Keith Kahn-Harris
The publication of this book could hardly be better timed. The disturbance at a Friends of Israel Society... Read more > Winter 2016

Book Review | Ike’s Gamble: America’s Rise to Dominance in the Middle East

By David Lowe
In 2013, shortly after his nomination for US Defence Secretary, then Senator Chuck Hagel purchased three dozen copies... Read more > Winter 2016

Book Review | The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Anti-Semitism

By Philip Spencer
To say this is a timely book is something of an understatement. Over the past few months, evidence... Read more > Autumn 2016

Book Review │ Judas

By Liam Hoare
Amos Oz was 14 when, two years after his mother took her own life, he left the city... Read more > Article

Book Review | Ben-Gurion: His Later Years in the Political Wilderness

By Colin Shindler
This latest work from Avi Shilon describes in detail Ben-Gurion’s last decade – from stepping down as prime... Read more > Autumn 2016

Book Review │ Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier's Story of a Forgotten War

By James Sorene
Israel’s military operations always have a name. As a mark of his achievement in June 1967, Chief of... Read more > Autumn 2016

Lies, Damned Lies and the Academic Boycott of Israel

By Michael Yudkin
Oxford University academic Michael Yudkin critiques the ‘Academic boycott’ promoted by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and... Read more > Article Summer 2016

Book Review│Doomed to Succeed: The US- Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama

By David Lowe
On 12 May 1948, nearly six months after the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into separate Jewish... Read more > Article Summer 2016

Book Review│Socialism of Fools: Capitalism and Modern Anti-Semitism

By Colin Shindler
The Italian academic, Michele Battini examines the gradual transformation of the traditional Christian anti-Semitic charge of usury into... Read more > Article Summer 2016

Book Review | Diasporic Activism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

By Keith Kahn-Harris
One of the most striking features of intra-Jewish conflicts over Israel in the UK and elsewhere in the... Read more > Spring 2016

Book Review | Winning the War of Words: Essays on Zionism and Israel

By Matti Friedman
Einat Wilf's book Winning the War of Words: Essays on Zionism and Israel is available on Amazon or... Read more > Autumn 2015

Book Review│Australia & Israel: A Diasporic, Cultural and Political Relationship

By Philip Mendes
Australia and Israel are superficially the oddest of couples. They are geographically distant, and massively different in size.... Read more > Autumn 2015

Book Review |Catch The Jew!

By Michael Wegier
Tuvia Tenenbom is a product of the Ultra-Orthodox community in B'nai Brak, near Tel Aviv. He grew up... Read more > Summer 2015

Book Review | Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide

By David Lowe
David E. Lowe is the Vice President for Government Relations and Public Affairs at the National Endowment for... Read more > Summer 2015

Book Review |The Paradox of Liberation: Secular Revolutions and Religious Counterrevolutions

By James Bloodworth
What has happened to the secular and democratic left? It would be an exaggeration to say that everywhere... Read more > Summer 2015

Book Review |Boycotting Israel is Wrong: The progressive path to peace between Palestinians and Israelis

By Luke Akehurst
Boycotting Israel is Wrong is a timely short book on the BDS phenomenon by Australian academics Philip Mendes... Read more > Summer 2015

Book Review | Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel

By Colin Shindler
Berl Katznelson, one of Labour Zionism’s ideological founders described David Ben-Gurion as ‘history’s gift to the Jewish people.’... Read more > Winter 2015