Barbara Tuchman shows how Britain's imperial ambition and needs, combined with an evangelical understanding of the Bible, made the Balfour Declaration possible and thus paved the way to the founding of the State of Israel.
From early times the British people have been drawn to Israel through the translation of the Bible into English and, later, the imperial need to control the road to India and access to the oil of the Middle East.
Under these influences, one cultural and the other political-military, countless Englishmen - pilgrims, crusaders, missionaries, merchants, explorers, and surveyors - have made their way to the land of the ancient Hebrews.
With the lucidity and vividness that characterise all her work, Barbara Tuchman brings to life the development of these twin motives - the Bible and the Sword - in the consciousness of the British people, until they were finally bought together at the end of World War 1 when Britain's conquest of Israel from the Turks and the solemn moment of entering Jerusalem were imminent.
Requiring a gesture of matching significance, that event evoked the Balfour Declaration of 1917, establishing a British-sponsored national home for the modern survivors of the people of the Old Testament. This book is essential reading for everyone who wants to understand the historical and biblical background to its issuing.
"In her metier as a narrative popular historical writer, Barbara Tuchman is supreme." Chicago Sun-Times
"Barbara Tuchman is a wise and witty writer, a shrewd observer with a lively command of high drama." The Philadelphia Inquirer
