Customer Reviews

Cains Field

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I had considered myself well read about the Israeli/Arab conflict in general and then I heard Matt Rees speak two months ago about this new book. He told me quite a few things I never knew before (mostly about the Palestinians). I bought his book on the spot and don't regret it. He is a good story teller and delves into issues and people that I don't read about in both the general and special interest media that covers this part of the world. I now have a better understanding about the issues that each side deals with internally (and especially about the Palestinian side).

Highly Recommended!

I have a deep interest and knowledge of Israel and I am not interested in reading repitious material, of which there is so much. However, "Cain's Field" is original. The first time I went to Israel, I read several books in advance, and in one, every person interviewed had a story. There were compelling stories of their backgrounds and how they got to Israel. "Cain's Field" was, for me, a continuation, a weaving together of stories of people of different backgrounds, each story wrapped up with the story of the country, young people figuring out where they fit into this world, the land of conflicts. The book is full of good drama, meticulously researched, shows authority and sensitivity. Most of all it is excellent reporting and not judgmental. It is fair and balanced and gives everyone equal time, four chapters each. I found the stories penetrating and provocative and Rees seems to have an understanding of the colliding cultures not available to ordinary readers and newscasters. I recommend "Cain's Field", it will entice you, pull you in during the first chapter with the intrigues of conflicts and betrayals. I could not put it down and read it in three sittings! Good gift idea!

This book is a real eye-opener. It takes readers behind the repetitive and often misleading headlines of Middle East reporting into the human heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict. It's a place where most journalists out there seem never to reach. Rees introduces us to a broad and fascinating cast of real-life characters, who are portrayed in skillfull detail.
I learned more from this book than years of "blow-by-blow" news reports on the intifada. It stands head and shoulders above other journalists' accounts of the intifada, which I have found predictable and superficial. From Cain's Field I finally have some understanding of life in Bethlehem and Gaza, and a real sense of what's been going on out there for the past few years. Perhaps even more crucially, Rees gives us a warts-and-all insight into the internal conflicts which have created the internal divisions within Palestinian and Israeli society, fueling the current conflict.
I left this book with only one question - how come most of the journalists covering the Middle East conflict never told us about all this stuff?

Matt Rees, a long time Jerusalem bureau chief for TIME, has an intimate knowledge of both the palestinian and the israeli scene.
His report is fair and full of insight.
Although I have spent many years in the area, the book has taught me more than I could ever have found out by myself.
It gave me a better understanding of what lies behind the headlines.
It is also well written and reads like a thriller.

Matt Rees is to be commended for arriving at an understanding of the Arabs of Israel, a people he respects and sympathizes with, without pandering to them.

His understanding of the Arab culture is deep and well researched. It is amazing to read a man who truly understands the nuances of Moslem-Palestinian society. A must read for all interested in developing a better understanding of the region. The book is at times painful and disturbing. For weeks I could not sleep at night when my thoughts turned to it. Yet, I am grateful to Matt Rees for opening that culture to me. I have since read other works by him, this time in the form of fiction and media articles.

Amazon - Matt Rees book

When a subject like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been covered extensively in the daily press for decades, when numerous biographies and memoirs exist already on the major political players in the conflict, writing another book on Israeli-Palestinian relations seems a daunting task. Accordingly, Matt Rees deserves a great deal of credit for figuring out new things to say and new ways of looking at the conflict, and making all of us involved in the Middle East look at the conflict with new filters. Rees' premise - that Israelis and Palestinians have to learn to live with themselves before they can live with each other -- is indeed a fresh and welcome approach to problem-solving in the conflict. For years it was always taken for granted on the Israeli side that the religious and social differences of the Israelis would have to await solution until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was resolved. Rees turns that premise on its head and shows why on both sides people have to end their own internal conflicts first before they can have any hope of reaching a lasting peace settlement. The most compelling aspects of Rees' well-written, deeply-researched book are the series of portraits he provides on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides. These portraits are so rich, and highly-textured, and his narrative moves so briskly, that one has the feeling of moving through a novel, not a piece of non-fiction. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants an engrossing and accurate picture of the most perplexing of the world's conflicts.

Robert Slater
Jerusalem, Israel

I've read two of the Omar Yussef mysteries now, and having thoroughly enjoyed them and becoming interested in the background, I sought out the author's first book, a rewarding non-fiction account of the conflicts in the middle East, especially those inner conflicts that pit Palestinian against Palestinian and Israeli against Israeli. The true stories recounted here are echoed in his later fiction, and in fact add a lot of understanding to the novels. Most highly recommended.

This was excellent. It delineated the various ingredients in the frictions between the Jews and Palestinians in Israel. I was very impressed with the non partiality of the author and the clarity of his examples. This was a very valuable contribution to Israeli studies.

No matter what you think of the players in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict now, it will surely change as a result of reading this excellent book. Matt Rees evokes a range of emotions in the reader, from outrage to empathy, and not always in the direction you might suppose. His human stories of the people effected most by internal struggles on both sides of the conflict paint pictures for the reader that until this book were unavailable to most of us who have followed the larger conflict in the news.

It's been a while since I have read anything new about the Arab-Israel conflict. Cain's Field is a great read that tells the real-life story of eight different people. Each story highlights a different internal conflict either on the Palestinian side or the Israeli side. Much of what I read here suprised me and I feel like the book goes deeper than what I have previously read on the subject. What I liked best about this book, though, is that the characters come alive. Each person comes off as a complex human being and the genuinely stories touched me.