Synopses & Reviews
Searching for the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict, historians for years focused on the British Mandate period (1920-1948). Amy Dockser Marcus, however, demonstrates that the bloody struggle for power actually started much earlier, when Jerusalem was still part of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism laid the groundwork for the battles that would continue to rage nearly a century later.
Nineteen thirteen was the crucial year for these conflicts—the year that the Palestinians held the First Arab Congress and the first time that secret peace talks were held between Zionists and Palestinians. World War I, however, interrupted these peace efforts.
Dockser Marcus traces these dramatic times through the lives of a handful of the city's leading citizens as they struggle to survive. A current events must read in our ongoing efforts to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Review
"Joyce Bean [makes] it a story about people, and her inflections make the principals seem human without giving them theatrical characters. Her motherly voice disarms a subject so controversial it has caused unending war." ---AudioFile
Synopsis
Journalist Marcus asserts that the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict began much earlier than what is commonly thought. She focuses on crucial events from 1913--the year of the First Arab Congress as well as the first secret peace talks--and how World War I interrupted these efforts. Unabridged. 6 CDs.
About the Author
Amy Dockser Marcus is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal who was based in Israel as the paper's Middle East correspondent from 1991 to 1998. She was awarded the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting. She lives in Massachusetts. Joyce Bean is an accomplished audiobook narrator and director. In addition to being an AudioFile Earphones Award winner, she has been nominated multiple times for a prestigious Audie Award. Equally adept at narrating fiction and nonfiction, her titles include Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman, Blue Smoke by Nora Roberts, and several Jayne Ann Krentz novels. Joyce lives in West Michigan.