Since 1948, the idea of Zionism has been the cornerstone of Israel's identity, its politics and its actions. In this groundbreaking new history, Ilan Pappe looks at the role of how the idea of Israel itself was created through history, film and literature.
In this history of an idea Pappe explores the many methods that the state has used to instill an unswerving belief in nationhood. He also explores how, in the course of one decade-the Oslo years of the 1990s this idea came under sustained questioning for the first time from a new generation of Post Zionist thinkers.
Was this an isolated occurrence, he asks, or does it indicate a different future for Israel? A brilliant anatomy of nationalism, from one of the leading and most controversial historians of Israel that shows the dangerous power of ideas.
