“6 Days of War” This is a terrific book for someone who, like me, isn’t immersed in the history of the Middle East. It’s chronological, thorough enough for one to be able to follow the events, and spends (as it should) about half of its pages on ‘how we got to this point.’ It has been wonderfully instructive to me as I have learned that we (the USA) have not always been in Israel’s corner, the Pan-Arab movement has been alive for a long time, and you can always count on the French to be arrogant and mercenary. The book tells the reader what happened in Tel Aviv, Damascus, Cairo, Washington, Moscow, London, New York, etc. as well as the battlefields of Sinai and the Golan. The only possible improvement I could suggest would be a listing of the important players as I find it hard to keep straight the second-tier players. Dayan, Eshkol, Nasser, ‘Amer, Hussein; everyone knows them, but their subordinates are hard to keep straight (particularly the Arabs because of my unfamiliarity with Arabic proper names…
Product Description Six Days of War was a New York Times Bestseller and Washington Post Best Book Award Winner in 2002.The book has been widely recognized as the definitive telling of the Six Day War in a context which is relevant today. |
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Awesome, long book that you don’t want to put down.  I read about half of this book in the course of 24 hours of traveling on a multiple of airplanes and almost couldn’t put it down (I finished it a few weeks later). While a serious work of scholarship, history never read so easily as the book moves quickly (basically the writing is excellent and a pleasure to read). I have been a (amateur) student of the history of Israel and have read many things on it and even with a lifetime of doing this, I learned an awful lot about the area from this book and in a very enjoyable way. Recently (earlier today), I had the good fortune to be at a social function in NYC where the author also happened to coincidently be. He mentioned that his next book was a two volume series on a subject regarding the middle east (I’m not sure if it is public knowledge) that only sounded mildly interesting. If it were any other author I might easily pass on it but if it lives up to the standard set by the Six Day War book then I will seriously consider it. Very Highly Recommended!… A Page Turner… Great account |
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1 Comment until now
Excellent Book; wonderful use of sources
Oren’s book is a modern classic. Since the other reviews here go into such depth, it would seem superfluous for me to do so as well. I did, however, want to mention two things which impressed me about the book and which may not have been mentioned in other reviews:
1) I won’t say the book reads like a novel, but Oren’s writing is so good, and the story he tells so compelling, that the book is filled with a building tension much like you would find in a fictional political thriller. I already knew the general story of the 1967 war, but I couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen next (i.e. what Oren was going to reveal next).
2) Oren’s excellent research makes it abundantly clear that the Arab powers were not only planning and preparing for a war of agression against Israel, but that they were BOASTING of doing so. The sheer bombastic stupidity of the Arab leaders comes through loud and clear even though Oren never attacks them. He is always fair. It also is wonderful to learn what extent the ‘big lie’ sort of action played in the war. A fine example was Nassar’s claim that his airforce was destroyed by the USA rather than the Israelis! The USA was in no way involved. The Arab leaders repeatedly lied to each other and their peoples in order to cover up their own staggering failures. In that regard, nothing has changed in the last 40 years!
A fascinating, wonderful book. You’ll thoroughly enjoy it.
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