Customer Reviews

Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour (Library Edition)

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I suspect that most people who read Bible and Sword do so after an enjoyable experience with one of Tuchman's acclaimed later works, such as Pulitzer Prize winners The Guns of August or Stillwell and the American Experience in China. I fall into the extreme end of this group, having read all 9 of her subsequent books before tackling this debut offering. Major fans of Tuchman will enjoy Bible and Sword on two levels--as a stand-alone historical work and as a window on the early development of one of the finest American-born historians.

Regarding the work itself, the topic of Britain's relationship with Palestine and central role in the movement toward re-establishment of the Jewish state is fascinating. The canvas is broad, covering roughly 1,700 years from the original Christian communities in 3rd century Britain to the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which established the British policy of restoring the Jewish state to Palestine. The thesis is compelling, namely that the Balfour Declaration was the scion of twin progenitors--the Christian motivation to restore the Jews to the promised land as a prerequisite to the second coming of Christ and the imperial motivation to control the vital Mediterranean commercial route to India and the Far East. Interestingly, Tuchman makes it clear that, with several individual exceptions, these motivations had nothing to do with concern for the Jews but rather originated from the spiritual and temporal aspirations of Britain. The ebb and flow of the Britain-Palestine relationship makes for fascinating reading, covering topics such as the early Holy Land pilgrimages, the Crusades, the role of the British Navy in halting Napoleon's conquest of Palestine and the British role in propping up the Ottoman Turks.

Fans of Tuchman will immediately notice similarities to her later style while being struck by several glaring differences. Her almost lyrical, figurative style, while not as refined or prevalent as additional experience would eventually allow, is on display. For example, in describing the Turkish decision to seek help from Russia in fending off rebellion, she writes, "In his last agony, the Sultan, as a drowning man might clutch at a boa constrictor, accepted the help of his long-loathed enemy the Czar." Unfortunately, unlike her later works, Bible and Sword is plagued by an amazing number of relatively obscure literary, political and historical allusions that leave the reader with the impression of an unproven writer seeking desperately to provide evidence of her erudition. While this can be understood in the context of an aspiring historian without the typical credentials of a PhD and university professorship, it frustrates the non-academic reader, as is evidenced by an earlier Amazon review.

In the final analysis, Bible and Sword is a stimulating read, although unrefined in several respects. If you are looking to read only one or two Tuchman books, this is not the choice. But if you have an interest in the topic and/or a high level of interest in Tuchman as a writer, I highly recommend it.

Ms.Tuchman traces the relationship between England and the establishment of a Jewish homeland. She takes us from the Beaker people who settled England to the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Tuchman, even in her first book, establishes a narrative style of writing about history that she would later use to achieve awesome heights in historical literature. The main enjoyment of this book is the detailed description of how the English were determined to regain Palestine for the Jewish people, so they then could be converted (whether the Jews wanted to or not),to christianity thus hastening the second comming of Christ. It also spreads some light on the seeming insanity of the puritans, who briefly changed England into a hebraic theocracy to protest the predominance of the Latin Catholic Church. It was probably impossible for Tuchamn to write this book without a little bias seeping through, and at times her treatment of the German people seems to be a little bit one sided, although this is quite understandable. If you ever wanted to know about the historical foundations of the Jewish Homeland, this book is for you.

As one of Tuchman's first publications, this book is perhaps a little rougher than some of her more recent works. The scholarship is, of course, thorough and brilliant, but the refined irony and humour found in her "Calamitous 14th Century" is somewhat lacking. (Of course, practice does make perfect, and this is a fine early work.)

With this said, her thorough coverage of the Balfour mandate starts not in the 19th century, but far back in the past, even before Britain first began to recognize the Christian debt to the Jews. Starting in the Bronze age, continuing through the Crusades, exploring Victorian ideals, and finishing with a thorough review of the events leading up to the formation of Israel, this book is nothing if not thorough.

For anyone who enjoys Tuchman's work, this book is no disappointment. For anyone curious about the convoluted and intricate relationship between Britain and Palestine, between Christian and Jew, this book is essential reading.

Barbara Tuchman's first work of history, Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age To Balfour, is vast in historical, religious, diplomatic and political scholarship. From the early times of the Beaker people and Caliphates to the first crusades and pilgrimages, all the way down to the creation of the Jewish homeland by the aristocratic and willowy former British Prime Minister Authur James Balfour and the Balfour Declaration of 1917 as well as the often overlooked Palestine Mandate, nothing is left out in describing how Israel came into being and England's often historically forgotten role in its conception. Of the two, the latter was actually the one "that gave a footing in public law to the restoration of Israel in Palestine" whereas the Balfour Declaration of 1917 "was simply a statement of policy that any subsequent government could have ignored". The Palestine Mandate was a global promise confirmed by Wilson's League of Nations and thus elevated the Balfour Declaration, which was absorbed with the mandate, to treaty status. Religiously speaking, the British wanted Israel settled so Christiendom would not only be the predominate faith above all the others, but so that Christ's appearance would not accelerate at unbelievable, astronomical speeds. Politically speaking, real bizarre! The criticism of this book is founded. The language is rather dry and antiquated. And there are minute biased overtones of the Christian faith. But the scholarship and information that is provided outweighs the negative tinctures in this book. It gives a broad understanding to a narrow subject.

Do you know someone who wants to understand the roots of today's conflict in the Middle East? There's no better introduction than Barbara Tuchman's Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour.

Tuchman published this book--her first--with NYU Press in 1956, dedicated to the memory of her parents Alma Morgenthau and Maurice Wertheim. I had not heard of it before it turned up in my Amazon search for a copy of her classic, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, which I had wanted to read again for perspective on the current Iraq crisis.

I can't say enough good things about this study, which is a careful examination of the role of Britain in the Middle East over the centuries, with special attention to the origins of the Balfour declaration. Tuchman writes with verve and gusto, bringing to life characters from Richard the Lion Hearted to Mark Sykes, T. E. Lawrence, Lord Balfour, and Chaim Weizmann. She's particularly good at describing the conflict in British Jewry between anti-Zionists like Montagu and Montefiore and Zionists like Nathaniel Rothschild. The Manchester Guardian and Winston Churchill come out looking good. Lloyd George is the villain of the piece (she basically calls him a liar).

For Anglophiles, as well as those interested in Zionism, Evangelical Christianity, or the Middle East--or those just wanting to read a brilliant history book...

This is an interesting and educational read, although not as riveting or effective as Guns of August or First Salute. Of course, the topic is not as riveting. To describe the relationship between Britain and Palestine through the ages is a great challenge, given the rather unexciting nature of that relationship through most of the time at issue. The story necessarily includes a great deal of behind-the-scenes material that pales in comparison to the monumental affairs of war and revolution.

That being said, the topic is interesting and her treatment is detailed and very helpful. One reviewer complained that she discounted the effectiveness of evangelism toward the Jews, but her description is accurate, historically, in that there was no mass conversion such as the evangelists sought and hoped for. The book certainly focuses on British and not Arab sources, but that is perfectly correct because the book is not about the Arabs, but about Britain and its relation to Palestine, which was never a major player in the Arab world.

The book is worth reading if only for the detailed description of British attitudes in the 1800's and the astonishing fascination for restoring the Jews which gripped Britain in that time.

This book was a really great read. This starts with the history of who could read the bible (priests mainly) up to the translation of the bible so that common man could read it (under King James and Henry VIII). With such an empowerment, the people of England broke from Roman Catholicism (and the influence of Puritism and Lutherism started), and the English people took up the cause for Israel, and in the long run, it lead to the twentieth century push for Israel to become a state. The book also covers Britains strategic move to keep conflict amongst the Turks, Arabs and Jews by establishing Israel amongst them. This book was really good with so many facts of history and presented neutrally. This is not Barbara Tuchman's best writing but it a very good book to understand the political control that the Bible had over the shaping of the countries today. Very good book!!

I very much enjoyed Bible and Sword. Like all of Tuchman's work that I have read, it keeps your interest just as much as a good novel. There were several places in the book where I made a note "good writing" such as when she wrote "Now the rationalists galloped with the bit in their teeth."

This book is principally about the ties between Britain and Palestine. Tuchman starts covering the story of how the Jews got back to Israel with the earliest sympathies in Britain coming from

interpretations of the Christian Bible's Old Testament. She then describes the imagined connection between Joseph of Arimathea and Britain that began in the Middle Ages and goes on to cite evidence of Briton pilgrims to Palestine beginning as early as the time of St. Jerome, ca 386 AD. She then leads the reader through the Crusades and Middle Ages when at times there was a regular tourist service to the Holy Land. These connections were primarily concerned with the New Testament connection with Palestine. During the evangelical Christian movement in Britain of the 1800's, however, there again developed a connection with the names and scenes of the Old Testament. She shows how these emotional and spiritual connections melded with Britain's imperial interests and led to the Balfour Declaration in 1917 and then the British-led Palestine Mandate in 1922 for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Imperial interests wanted a friendly and British controlled Palestine to protect the eastern flank of Britain's route to India through the Suez canal. By the 1930's the Brits were already tired of the job and were looking for some one else to dump it on - and then WWII intervened.

Unfortunately, Tuchman dropped the story pretty much in the late 1920's after telling how the Turkish empire got dismantled with only a few later events mentioned. That was quite a disappointment. I would like to have had her tell the story of how the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine got reactivated after WWII and how the dimensions of the Jewish and Palestinian areas were decided, what the commitments to the non-Jewish citizens were, and how the Jewish partisans forced Britain to get out of Palestine.

I do have to say that Tuchman's view of the whole of her history is very British. She cites very few Arab sources, not even the English Arab, Lawrence of Arabia, other to mention that he existed and was very active in negotiations on the part of the Arab interests. I had to keep reminding myself that Tuchman was an American educated in America as she gave very little perspective on views from this side of the big pond.

For some more on the Arab view of the later influences of Europe on Palestine and other areas in the Middle East, I can recommend Part IV of Albert Hourani's book "A History of the Arab Peoples," it doesn't read like Tuchman but it does give much more of the non-European views.

This book, Barbara Tuchman's first, is ancient; it first appeared in 1956. So, you might ask, what does an ancient tome like this have to teach the modern reader? Answer, a surprising amount. I had always thought that the story of the State of Israel started with the Dreyfus Affair and Theodor Herzl and his Zionist movement. How wrong I was. Mrs. Tuchman tells how, far from being merely a gesture to US financiers to get money to finance an enormously expensive war or as a thank-you for Zionist founder Chaim Weizman's acetone process (essential for cordite manufacture), the Balfour Declaration of 1917 was the culmination of centuries of British idealistic dreaming of bringing the Jews back to Palestine. It was fascinating to read of a sort of proto-Zionism 80 years before The Real Thing.

The British motives were mixed. Initially, they were completely religious (that a return would bring about the coming of the Messiah, naturally after the Jews had all converted to Anglicanism), but later became mixed with political (to guard the other side of the Suez Canal and the route to Empire). However, and I found this Mrs. Tuchman's most fascinating conclusion, the religious aspect never went away. Palestine was never a simple grab for empire; it was always combined with the concept that this new bit of Britain's overseas empire would be a homeland for a people who hadn't had one for nearly 1900 years. In addition, they thought that the energy and financial acumen of the Jews would transform the Middle East. This would naturally be to the advantage of the British, but it wasn't the only or even the main reason.

The problem was that the Balfour Declaration spoke of "a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine". Nobody said anything much about an independent state, and that is ultimately where the whole thing was to go off the rails. Herzl wanted such a state of course, but didn't say so too loudly, because the British, ultimately his most powerful backers, didn't want to hear it. In addition, most influential Jews on both sides of the Atlantic wanted assimilation and were often passionately anti-Zionist.

In the end, the Declaration was only ever a statement of policy, which could have been ignored. The thing that caused the problems was the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, and that couldn't be ignored. The British wanted it, got it, were stuck with it and in the end walked away from it. The Jews in Israel had to take matters into their own hands, with consequences that echo right down to the present day. Does Israel exist because of or in spite of the British? The verdict is open.

The book is typical Tuchman, an enjoyable, witty, informative, lively read, which passes on a good deal of information very pleasantly and painlessly. Mrs Tuchman is also refreshingly honest. She makes plain her pro-Israel sympathies (she contemplated continuing to 1948, but was so outraged by what she sees as British betrayal that it became a polemic and she tore it up). It is anyone's guess what she would think of the neighbourhood bully that is the present-day Israel, the one that totally ignores the other bit of the Balfour Declaration "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine".

This is vintage Tuchman. She tackles an interesting topic in a readable, yet fully researched, volume. I've actually been thinking recently of rereading this book considering the ongoing turmoil between the West and the region.