Welcome to a list of books, articles and related media which we hope you will find a valuable source of information about Britain’s role in the origins of the Israel / Palestine issue.
We offer this bibliography to readers, whatever their persuasion or level of interest, as a means of learning more about Britain’s responsibilities in this situation. As you would expect from such a highly-charged and polarised state of affairs, scholars have approached the subject, and its history, from a variety of opposing standpoints. Historians are as much at odds with each other as to which is the ‘true narrative’ and the ‘correct version’ as are any of the actors ‘on the ground.’ Especially the historians, in fact. For the interpretation of history is where it all begins…
The fact that a particular resource is included in this list does not imply that the ‘Balfour Project’ team endorse its contents.
You can approach the list that follows much as you would if you were swimming the Channel. Start with the basics, and get warmed up in the shallow waters of general histories – though beware!- even this is not a simple, neutral exercise. Then, if you decide to proceed, as we hope you will, take the plunge into deeper, icier waters. You can decide on the route you take according to your personal interests. The subheadings will guide you through a variety of related topics.
The texts vary from the level of what a Sixth Former might find interesting to what a doctoral student might require.
Come back to the site later, as more resources will be added over time, in addition to editorial comments which will give you further information about a particular item.
Recent Books
Black, Ian (2017) “Enemies and Neighbours” Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017 by Ian Black Allen Lane
Cronin, D (2017) Balfour’s Shadow: A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel Pluto Press
Jeffries, J.M.N. (2017) Palestine the Reality Olive Branch Press (Imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc.). Republication of 1939 edition.
Regan, B (2017) Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine. Verso,
Turnberg, L (2017) Beyond the Balfour Declaration: The 100-Year Quest for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, (Biteback Publishing)
General histories
Mansfield, P (1978), The Arabs, London: Penguin
Mansfield, P (2010), History of the Middle East, London: Penguin
Johnson, P (1988), A History of the Jews, Harper Perennial
Gilbert, M, (2008), Israel: a History, London: Transworld
Printed collections of primary sources
Ingrams, D (1972), Palestine Papers, 1917-22: Seeds of Conflict, London: John Murray
Kedourie, E (2000), In the Anglo-Arab labyrinth : the McMahon-Husayn correspondence and its interpretations, 1914-1939, London: Frank Cass
Laqueur, W and Rubin, B, eds., (1970), The Israel-Arab Reader: a Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict, London: Penguin
Detailed histories
Adelson, R (1994), London and the Invention of the Middle East: Money, Power and War, 1902-1922, New Haven: Yale University Press
Barr, J (2011) A Line in the Sand: the Anglo-French Struggle for the Middle East, 1914-1948, London: Simon and Schuster
Friedman, I (1973), The Question of Palestine, 1914-1918: British-Jewish-Arab Relations, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
Friedman, I (2000), Palestine: a Twice-Promised Land? The British, the Arabs and Zionism, 1915-20, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction
Fromkin, D. (1989), A Peace to end all Peace: the Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East, London: Penguin
Hardie, F (1980), Britain and Zion: the Fateful Entanglement, Belfast
John, R (1988), Behind the Balfour Declaration: the Hidden Origins of Today’s Mid-East Crisis, Costa Mesa, California: Institute for Historical Review
Kedourie, E (1987), England and the Middle East: the Destruction of the Ottoman Empire, 1914-21, London: Mansell
Kimche, J (1968), The Unromantics: the Great Powers and the Balfour Declaration, London: Anglo-Israel Association
Lewis, G (2009), Balfour and Weizmann: the Zionist, the Zealot and the Emergence of Israel, London: Continuum
Monroe, E (1963), Britain’s Moment in the Middle East, 1914-1956, London: Chatto and Windus
Sanders, R, (1983) The High Walls of Jerusalem: a History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine, New York
Schneer, J (2010), The Balfour Declaration: the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, London: Bloomsbury
Segev, T (2002) One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate, London: Abacus
Shlaim, A (2009), ‘The Balfour Declaration and its Consequences,’ in Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations, London: Verso
Stein, L (1961), The Balfour Declaration, London
Sugarman, S (2000) The Unrelenting Conflict: Britain, Balfour and Betrayal, Lewes: Book Guild
Journal articles
Renton, J, “The Historiography of the Balfour Declaration: Toward a Multi-Causal Framework,” Journal of Israeli History, Summer, 1998, pp.109-28
Verete, M, “The Balfour Declaration and its Makers,” Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 6, 1970, No. 1
Biographies/autobiographies of key individuals
Berlin, I (1998), Personal Impressions, ‘Chaim Weizmann’, London: Pimlico
Dugdale, B (1939) Arthur James Balfour, London: Hutchinson
Huneidi, S (2001), A Broken Trust: Herbert Samuel, Zionism and the Palestinians, 1920-1925, London: I.B. Tauris
Rabinowicz, O (1958), Herzl, Architect of the Balfour Declaration, New York: Herzl Press
Rasor, E (1998), AJ Balfour: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography London: Greenwood Press
Reinharz, Y (1993), Chaim Weizmann: the Making of a Statesman, Oxford: OUP
Weizmann, C (1949), Trial and Error: the Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann, London: Hamish Hamilton
Young, K (1963), Arthur James Balfour: the Happy Life of the Politician, Prime Minister, Statesman and Philosopher, London: G. Bell and Sons
Zebel, S (1973), Balfour: A Political Biography, Cambridge: CUP
Zionism
Herrman, I (1971), ‘Anglo-Zionist Relations from Herzl to the Balfour Declaration, 1902-1917,’ D.Phil, Oxford
Vital, D (1987), Zionism: the Crucial Phase, Oxford: OUP
Renton, J (2007), The Zionist Masquerade: the Birth of the Anglo-Zionist Alliance, 1914-1918, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan
Christian Zionism: its historical roots
Cohn-Sherbok, Dan (2006), The Politics of Apocalypse: the History and Influence of Christian Zionism, Oxford
Lewis, Donald (2010), The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury and Evangelical Support for a Jewish Homeland, New York: Cambridge University Press
Merkley, P (1998), The Politics of Christian Zionism, 1891-1948, Portland Oregon: F. Cass
Rubinstein, W and H (1999), Philosemitism: Admiration and Support in the English-Speaking World for Jews, 1840-1939, Basingstoke: Macmillan
Sizer, Stephen (2004), Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon? Leicester: IVP
History of Anglo-Jewry
Brook, S, (1996) The Club: the Jews of Modern Britain, London: Constable
Cesarani, D, (1990) The Making of Modern Anglo-Jewry, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
Cohen, S, English Zionists and British Jews: the Communal Politics of Anglo-Jewry, 1895-1920, Princeton: PUP
Klug, B, (2010) Being Jewish and Doing Justice: Bringing Argument to Life, Vallentine Mitchell
Britain and the Arabs
Barr, J (2007), Setting the Desert on Fire, London: Bloomsbury
Friedman, I, “The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence and the Question of Palestine,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 5, No.2, 1970
Future categories in our bibliography will include:
Anti-Semitism
The Israel/Palestine Conflict
Related fiction
Films
Material for schools
Guide to the archival material