Bøker av Anita Shapira

Liberties, a Journal of Culture and Politics, is essential reading for those engaged in the cultural and political issues of our time. In this edition of Liberties: Anita Shapira - Statehood and the Jews; Christian Lorentzen - confessions of a New York writer; Oksana Forostyna - Russian Culture and the Ukraine War; Jack Goldsmith - The Supreme Court Wars, America and Israel; Kenda Mutongi - controlled chaos in Kenya; Robert B. Pippin - Bresson’s revolution; Morten Høi Jensen - Georg Brandes, the last European; William Deresiewicz - the edgy mastery of Elizabeth Hardwick; Adrian Nathan West - an undiscovered Dutch literary masterpiece; James McAuley - a memory cellar; Anna Ballan -  Gustav Mahler and farewells in music; Helen Vendler - on the artless artistry of William Blake; Celeste Marcus - the uncanniness of Isabelle Huppert; Leon Wieseltier - rise of narrative and the fall of persuasion; and, poetry by Andrew Jenkins, Miron Bialoszewski, and Chaim Nachman Bialik.Published quarterly, Liberties, is a collection of the most significant writers today as well as launching the voices of tomorrow. Liberties features serious, independent, stylish, and controversial essays by significant writers and introduces the next generation of writers and poets to inspire and impact the intellectual and creative lifeblood of today’s culture and politics.There’s a reason why engaged citizens, cultural warriors, political leaders, opinion makers, and activists from across the cultural and political spectrum read and cherish Liberties.

A history of Israel in the context of the modern Jewish experience and the history of the Middle East

A best-selling biography in Israel, available for the first time in the English language.

"Originally published in Hebrew in 2008 under the title Brenner: Sippur hayim."

David Ben-Gurion cast a great shadow during his lifetime, and his legacy continues to be sharply debated to this day. There have been many books written about the life and accomplishments of the Zionist icon and founder of modern Israel, but this new biography by eminent Israeli historian Anita Shapira strives to get to the core of the complex man who would become the face of the new Jewish nation. Shapira tells the Ben-Gurion story anew, focusing especially on the period after 1948, during the first years of statehood. As a result of her extensive research and singular access to Ben-Gurion’s personal archives, the author provides fascinating and original insights into his personal qualities and those that defined his political leadership. As Shapira writes, “Ben-Gurion liked to argue that history is made by the masses, not individuals. But just as Lenin brought the Bolshevik Revolution into the world and Churchill delivered a fighting Britain, so with Ben-Gurion and the Jewish state. He knew how to create and exploit the circumstances that made its birth possible.” Shapira’s portrait reveals the flesh-and-blood man who more than anyone else realized the Israeli state.

This work traces the history of attitudes toward power and the use of armed force within the Zionist movement from an early period in which most leaders espoused an ideal of peaceful settlement in Palestine, to the acceptance of force as a legitimate tool for achieving a sovereign Jewish state.

The last 15 years have witnessed deep changes in Israeli society. This newly acquired self-assurance led to openness towards unorthodox views on basic questions of Israeli identity. The new mood found expression in the cultural climate and in the public debates.

The biography of Berl is more than the biography of an individual: it is the story of a movement. The book traces Berl from a young Russian socialist and romantic pioneer on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, into the propounder of a work ethic and the founder of the central political current of the Israeli labour movement.