1967

Israel, the War, and the Year That Transformed the Middle East

By: Tom Segev

Narrated by: James Boles

From Israel's leading historian comes this sweeping history of 1967: the war, what led up to it, what came after, and how it changed everything. Tom Segev's acclaimed works One Palestine Complete and The Seventh Million overturned accepted views of the history of Israel. Now, in 1967 (a number-one best-seller in Israel) he brings his masterful skills to the watershed year when six days of war reshaped the country and the entire region.

Going far beyond a military account, Segev re-creates the crisis in Israel before 1967, showing how economic recession, a full grasp of the Holocaust's horrors, and the dire threats made by neighbor states combined to produce a climate of apocalypse. He depicts the country's bravado after its victory and the mood revealed in a popular joke in which one soldier says to his friend, "Let's take over Cairo". The friend replies, "Then what shall we do in the afternoon?"

Drawing on unpublished letters and diaries, as well as government memos and military records, Segev reconstructs an era of new possibilities and tragic missteps. He introduces the legendary figures Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir, Gamal Abdul Nasser, and Lyndon Johnson, and an epic cast of soldiers, lobbyists, refugees, and settlers. He reveals as never before Israel's intimacy with the White House as well as the political rivalries that sabotaged any chance of peace. Above all, he challenges the view that the war was inevitable, showing that a series of disastrous miscalculations lay behind the bloodshed.

A vibrant and original history, 1967 is sure to stand as the definitive account of that pivotal year.

©2007 Tom Segev (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.

Critic reviews

"A lucid history of a year that began in agony and self-doubt and ended with a nation made powerful and purposeful." ( Kirkus)

Extremely Painful

The reader is stiff, the writing is hard to follow - it jumps all over the place. I haven't been able to make it thru 25% of this book.

The story is captivating

I enjoyed the story- however, the narrator contorted and butchered all of the Hebrew words.
His inability to pronounce the words correctly, produced a frustrating and disappointing listening experience.
It was amateurish and as a paid narrator, he should have done better.
The book itself is good, however, it leans heavily towards the left!
All in all, a worthwhile read.

Narration butchers book

As someone who speaks both Arabic and Hebrew, the authors pronunciation of personal and place names was like nails on a chalk board! Good lord! Just say Israel not is-ra-el.... really ruined what is an excellent book

horrible pronounciation errors

I am enjoying this book but am shocked at how terrible the narrator's pronounciation of common Hebrew words is. This can be extremely distracting for anyone who knows any Hebrew. He totally butchers most Hebrew words and they occur fairly frequently in the narrative. I am really surprised that he did not have more training before recording the book- I thought that this was a prerequisite for readers recording books with foreign words in it.

uninspiring reading and quotidian content

I found two problems. First, the details of people' feelings and movements, the exact contents of newspaper articles, the in-depth opinions about the most the most inconsequential of aspects of daily life related in the most excruciating detail, left me exasperated and bored to the extreme. Second was an almost computer-voice style of reading, without inflection or emotion that only added to the problems in relating the content. I was also annoyed by the mispronunciations of the Hebrew (eg. ha-GAN-a instead of ha-ga-NA). This book may be fine for those who hunger for the quotidian details of everyday Israeli life in 1967 but the forest gets lost in the trees.

Superb Historical Reference

Well written and thoroughly researched using mostly primary resources, this book gives a detailed account of the year 1967 from the Israeli perspective. Not restricting himself solely to the 6 Day War but socieo-economic, cultural, historical, as well as military aspects of that pivotal year. The book seems to be objective citing the good and the bad of the decisions of the Israeli government and military during 1967. So much background information is provided that the book is occassionaly tedious, nonetheless the book is highly recommended.

awful narration spoils a good book

Like many other reviewers I am bailing out on listening to this. Not only is the pronunciation awful (why on earth use the Israeli pronunciation for Israel ("Yis-rah-el" in an English edition? not to mention slaughtering most of the other Hebrew words), but the reading is ponderous, inappropriately emphasized, and somehow completely mismatched to the tenor of the work. Tom Segev is an important Israeli "new historian", but I'm going to have to read rather than listen to this. The background he gives to the crisis in the part i've listened to- the socio-economic state of Israel at the time- is really interesting, so I suspect that this will be worth reading.

Reader is awful

The narrator is monotonous, boring... Takes the life out of an interesting historical period. Seger is a good writer but Boles is awful

great as far as historic overview, but ..

this is not the first narrator who butchers Hebrew pronunciation (except Is-Rah-EL)
however, the background of all that was happening in Israel that all important year is worth it.
I have read several accounts of the 6 Day War.
this was so much more!
I highly recommend it

Simple well written.

The subject is a divisive one, but looking at how it was written. This is one of my favourite books. I listened to it over and over again. I plan on listening to it again in the future about 100 times or so.