Bibliography

Welcome to a list of books, articles and related media which we hope you will find a valuable source of information about Britain’s role in the origins of the Israel / Palestine issue.

We offer this bibliography to readers, whatever their persuasion or level of interest, as a means of learning more about Britain’s responsibilities in this situation.  As you would expect from such a highly-charged and polarised state of affairs, scholars have approached the subject, and its history, from a variety of opposing standpoints. Historians are as much at odds with each other as to which is the ‘true narrative’ and the ‘correct version’ as are any of the actors ‘on the ground.’  Especially the historians, in fact.  For the interpretation of history is where it all begins…

The fact that a particular resource is included in this list does not imply that the ‘Balfour Project’ team endorse its contents.

You can approach the list that follows much as you would if you were  swimming the Channel. Start with the basics, and get warmed up in the shallow waters of general histories – though beware!- even this is not a simple, neutral exercise. Then, if you decide to proceed, as we hope you will, take the plunge into deeper, icier waters. You can decide on the route you take according to your personal interests. The subheadings will guide you through a variety of related topics.

The texts vary from the level of what a Sixth Former might find interesting to what a doctoral student might require.

Come back to the site later, as more resources will be added over time, in addition to editorial comments which will give you further information about a particular item.

Recent Books

Black, Ian (2017) “Enemies and Neighbours” Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017 by Ian Black  Allen Lane

Cronin, D (2017) Balfour’s Shadow: A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel Pluto Press

Jeffries, J.M.N. (2017) Palestine the Reality Olive Branch Press (Imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc.).  Republication  of 1939 edition.

Regan, B (2017) Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine. Verso,

Turnberg, L (2017) Beyond the Balfour Declaration: The 100-Year Quest for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, (Biteback Publishing)

General histories

Mansfield, P (1978), The Arabs, London: Penguin

Mansfield, P (2010), History of the Middle East, London: Penguin

Johnson, P (1988), A History of the Jews, Harper Perennial

Gilbert, M, (2008), Israel: a History, London: Transworld

Printed collections of primary sources

Ingrams, D (1972), Palestine Papers, 1917-22: Seeds of Conflict, London:   John Murray

Kedourie, E  (2000), In the Anglo-Arab labyrinth : the McMahon-Husayn  correspondence and its interpretations, 1914-1939, London: Frank   Cass

Laqueur, W and Rubin, B, eds., (1970), The Israel-Arab Reader:   a Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict, London: Penguin

Detailed histories

Adelson, R (1994), London and the Invention of the Middle East: Money, Power  and War, 1902-1922, New Haven: Yale University Press

Barr, J  (2011)  A Line in the Sand: the Anglo-French Struggle for the Middle East, 1914-1948, London: Simon and Schuster

Friedman, I (1973), The Question of Palestine, 1914-1918: British-Jewish-Arab  Relations, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul

Friedman, I  (2000),  Palestine: a Twice-Promised Land? The British, the Arabs    and Zionism, 1915-20, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction

Fromkin, D. (1989), A Peace to end all Peace: the Fall of the Ottoman Empire   and the Creation of the Modern Middle East,  London: Penguin

Hardie, F (1980), Britain and Zion: the Fateful Entanglement,  Belfast

 

John, R (1988), Behind the Balfour Declaration: the Hidden Origins of Today’s   Mid-East Crisis, Costa Mesa, California: Institute for Historical Review

Kedourie, E (1987), England and the Middle East: the Destruction of the   Ottoman Empire, 1914-21,  London: Mansell

Kimche, J (1968), The Unromantics: the Great Powers and the Balfour  Declaration, London: Anglo-Israel Association

Lewis, G (2009),  Balfour and Weizmann: the Zionist, the Zealot and the Emergence of Israel, London: Continuum

Monroe, E (1963), Britain’s Moment in the Middle East, 1914-1956, London:  Chatto and Windus

Sanders, R, (1983) The High Walls of Jerusalem: a History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine, New York

Schneer, J  (2010), The Balfour Declaration: the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, London: Bloomsbury

Segev, T (2002) One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate, London: Abacus

Shlaim, A (2009), ‘The Balfour Declaration and its Consequences,’ in Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations, London: Verso

Stein, L (1961), The Balfour Declaration, London

Sugarman, S (2000) The Unrelenting Conflict: Britain, Balfour and Betrayal,  Lewes: Book Guild

Journal articles

Renton, J, “The Historiography of the Balfour Declaration: Toward a Multi-Causal Framework,” Journal of Israeli History, Summer, 1998, pp.109-28

Verete, M, “The Balfour Declaration and its Makers,” Middle Eastern Studies,  Vol. 6, 1970, No. 1

Biographies/autobiographies of key individuals

Berlin, I (1998), Personal Impressions, ‘Chaim Weizmann’, London:  Pimlico

Dugdale, B (1939) Arthur James Balfour, London: Hutchinson

Huneidi, S (2001), A Broken Trust: Herbert Samuel, Zionism and the  Palestinians, 1920-1925, London: I.B. Tauris

Rabinowicz, O (1958), Herzl, Architect of the Balfour Declaration, New York:   Herzl Press

Rasor, E (1998), AJ Balfour: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography   London: Greenwood Press

Reinharz, Y (1993),  Chaim Weizmann: the Making of a Statesman, Oxford: OUP

Weizmann, C (1949), Trial and Error: the Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann, London: Hamish Hamilton

Young, K (1963), Arthur James Balfour: the Happy Life of the Politician, Prime Minister, Statesman and Philosopher, London: G. Bell and Sons

Zebel, S (1973), Balfour: A Political Biography, Cambridge: CUP

Zionism

Herrman, I (1971), ‘Anglo-Zionist Relations from Herzl to the Balfour Declaration, 1902-1917,’ D.Phil, Oxford

Vital, D (1987), Zionism: the Crucial Phase, Oxford: OUP

Renton, J (2007), The Zionist Masquerade: the Birth of the Anglo-Zionist  Alliance, 1914-1918, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan

Christian Zionism: its historical roots

Cohn-Sherbok, Dan  (2006),  The Politics of Apocalypse: the History and Influence  of Christian Zionism, Oxford

Lewis, Donald  (2010),  The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury and   Evangelical Support for a Jewish Homeland, New York: Cambridge University   Press

Merkley, P (1998), The Politics of Christian Zionism, 1891-1948, Portland   Oregon: F. Cass

Rubinstein, W and H (1999), Philosemitism: Admiration and Support in the   English-Speaking World for Jews, 1840-1939, Basingstoke: Macmillan

Sizer, Stephen (2004), Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon?     Leicester: IVP

History of Anglo-Jewry

Brook, S, (1996)  The Club: the Jews of Modern Britain, London: Constable

Cesarani, D, (1990)  The Making of Modern Anglo-Jewry, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell

Cohen, S, English Zionists and British Jews: the Communal Politics of Anglo-Jewry, 1895-1920, Princeton: PUP

Klug, B, (2010) Being Jewish and Doing Justice: Bringing Argument to Life, Vallentine Mitchell

Britain and the Arabs

Barr, J (2007), Setting the Desert on Fire, London: Bloomsbury

Friedman, I, “The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence and the Question of Palestine,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 5, No.2, 1970

Future categories in our bibliography will include:

Anti-Semitism

The Israel/Palestine Conflict

Related fiction

Films

Material for schools

Guide to the archival material