Israel

Children's Literature - Judy Silverman

This seems to be a balanced and thorough review of Middle East history and politics. It is too bad, in a way, that so much is going on right now—any book written is bound to be out of date within a week. The final chapter, "Into the 21st century: the challenge continues," illustrates that point very well. It begins with Ariel Sharon's taking charge of the government in February 2001. Every page from then on seems to repeat the cycle of attack/hopes for peace/more war. With the section titled "the rise of Hamas and conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon," any hopes of peace seem to be fading, and of course that is what is going on right now. The timeline goes between 928 BC and 2008. I found the use of the term "BC" a little disturbing. Any book about Israel should use the term BCE (before the common era) instead of BC (before Christ)—a competent editor should have found that. A complete bibliography includes two different sections of books as well as websites. Picture credits and a complete index make the book very useful to a wide variety of readers. "Creation of the Modern Middle East" series. Recommended. Reviewer: Judy Silverman