Books on Israel, Volume I

PREFACE

PREFACE The Association for Israel Studies was founded in 1985 by a group of scholars from many disciplines who believed that an organizational framework for the exchange of ideas about all aspects of Israeli society was needed. At its annual meeting in June 1986 the Association for Israel Studies approved the regular publication of collections of review essays dealing with recent scholarship on Israel. The decision was based, in part, on the perception that a substantial amount of Israeli scholarship, published in Hebrew, is not read or noticed by s(:holars living and working elsewhere. This volume, and the series which it inaugurates, is an attempt to address this problem. Although most Middle East oriented journals in the United States and Britain include publications on Israel among those reviewed, there is a notable absence of scholarly outlets whose focus is both Israeli and multi-disciplinary. To be sure, in this volume, as is likely to be the case in each subsequent volume, some fields in the humanities and the social sciences are not represented; others are perhaps over represented. But the purpose of the collection is neither to provide a comprehensive survey of new books, nor a finely balanced account of where scholarship on Israeli affairs is headed. It is intended to provide a forum for the interchange of ideas and the discussion of new directions in the study of Israel. At a time of rapid transformation in many spheres of Israeli life, the opportunity for that kind of interchange is particularly important. The Association hopes, in other words, to enhance the flow of knowledge and to stimulate creative thinking through the cross-fertilization that can occur in a multi-disciplinary setting. To that end serious students of Israeli politics, society, and culture, have been encouraged to use the review essay format as a vehicle for the exploration of innovative ideas, approaches, and methods. Each contributor was given wide leeway to decide on the books to be considered. Overall there was, and in the future will continue to be, an effort to see that at least 30%-40% of the books discussed in the volume are in languages other than English. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Don Peretz and Dr. Barry Rubin for their help in soliciting the essays included in this volume, Alberto Guerrero and Darshna Patel for their help in preparing the manuscript. I am particularly appreciative of the work done by the contributors. The thoughtfulness and expeditiousness with which they responded have made the editorial tasks involved much less burdensome than I ever could have expected. VII Professor Ian Lustick, Editor Dartmouth College Hanover, New Hampshire ...