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Crossing Mandelbaum Gate : Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 by Kai Bird (2011, Trade Paperback)
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Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 by Bird, Kai [Paperback]
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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherScribner
ISBN-101416544410
ISBN-139781416544418
eBay Product ID (ePID)102912457
Product Key Features
Book TitleCrossing Mandelbaum Gate : Coming of Age between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978
Number of Pages448 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication Year2011
TopicPersonal Memoirs, International Relations / General, World / Middle Eastern, Middle East / Israel & Palestine, Middle East / General, International Relations / Diplomacy
IllustratorYes
GenrePolitical Science, Biography & Autobiography, History
AuthorKai Bird
FormatTrade Paperback
Dimensions
Item Height1.1 in
Item Weight12.4 Oz
Item Length8.4 in
Item Width5.5 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceTrade
LCCN2009-052243
Dewey Edition22
Reviews'A wonderfully intimate account, which reminds us that the path to peace passes through the gate of personal narrative. We need not agree with Bird's analysis to be moved by his story and allow it to help us walk through that gate.' —Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, author ofYou Don't Have To Be Wrong for Me To Be Right, "Acute and engaging… Bird puts me somewhat in mind of Edward Said's memoir, Out of Place …. Bird devotes the last third of his text to a reconstruction of his Austrian Jewish wife's family history during and after the Shoah. His intention here is as admirable as it is plain, and these pages contain some stirring and even uplifting material about human survival. But this serves only to make his genuine evenhandedness more poignant."-Christopher Hitchens, The Atlantic, "Engaging and insightful... Crossing Mandelbaum Gate is a compelling corrective that can force even reluctant readers to look at the Middle East anew.... A powerful and unflinching book."-James Gibney, The American Scholar, 'A compelling hybrid of memoir and history? kaleidoscopic and captivating.'—Publishers Weekly(starred review), "Engaging and insightful& Crossing Mandelbaum Gate is a compelling corrective that can force even reluctant readers to look at the Middle East anew&. A powerful and unflinching book."-James Gibney, The American Scholar, "Bird's acute and engaging memoir is a mournful recollection of a time when the single issue of Arab and Israeli, Muslim and Jew, was not the monotonously dominant theme that it has since become'. He is adroit, modest, ironic, and amusing? Bird puts me somewhat in mind of Edward Said's memoir,Out of Place."—Christopher Hitchens,The Atlantic, "Illuminating . . . poignant . . . A fascinating book about a crucial period in the Middle East."—Mike O'Connor,Washington Post, "Engaging and insightful…Crossing Mandelbaum Gateis a compelling corrective that can force even reluctant readers to look at the Middle East anew…. A powerful and unflinching book."-James Gibney,The American Scholar, "Engaging and insightful... Crossing Mandelbaum Gate is a compelling corrective that can force even reluctant readers to look at the Middle East anew.... A powerful and unflinching book."--James Gibney, The American Scholar, "Acute and engaging& Bird puts me somewhat in mind of Edward Said's memoir, Out of Place &. Bird devotes the last third of his text to a reconstruction of his Austrian Jewish wife's family history during and after the Shoah. His intention here is as admirable as it is plain, and these pages contain some stirring and even uplifting material about human survival. But this serves only to make his genuine evenhandedness more poignant."-Christopher Hitchens, The Atlantic, "The book rips along like a spy novel . . . [Bird] has succeeded in explaining the perspectives of two peoples who view the Middle East conflict through different lenses."—Neil MacFarquhar,New York Times Book Review, "An extraordinarily rich and pleasurable memoir, a worthy addition to the literature of Middle Eastern ex-pats that ranges from Charles M. Doughty'sTravels in Arabia Desertato Thomas Friedman'sFrom Beirut to Jerusalem . . . I simply could not put it down."—Jonathan Kirsch, The Jewish Journal, "Acute and engaging… Bird puts me somewhat in mind of Edward Said's memoir,Out of Place…. Bird devotes the last third of his text to a reconstruction of his Austrian Jewish wife's family history during and after the Shoah. His intention here is as admirable as it is plain, and these pages contain some stirring and even uplifting material about human survival. But this serves only to make his genuine evenhandedness more poignant."-Christopher Hitchens,The Atlantic, "I was entranced by this book from the first page to the last, and can recommend it with enthusiasm."-- Sir Martin Gilbert, official biographer of Winston Churchill and author ofIsrael: A HistoryandJerusalem in the Twentieth Century, "Kai Bird has done the impossible, and written a wholly original book challenging both the conventional and unconventional wisdom about Israel, the Jews and the Middle East." -- Victor S. Navasky, author ofNaming Names, "Acute and engaging... Bird puts me somewhat in mind of Edward Said's memoir, Out of Place .... Bird devotes the last third of his text to a reconstruction of his Austrian Jewish wife's family history during and after the Shoah. His intention here is as admirable as it is plain, and these pages contain some stirring and even uplifting material about human survival. But this serves only to make his genuine evenhandedness more poignant."--Christopher Hitchens, The Atlantic, "Engaging and insightful… Crossing Mandelbaum Gate is a compelling corrective that can force even reluctant readers to look at the Middle East anew…. A powerful and unflinching book."-James Gibney, The American Scholar, "Acute and engaging... Bird puts me somewhat in mind of Edward Said's memoir, Out of Place .... Bird devotes the last third of his text to a reconstruction of his Austrian Jewish wife's family history during and after the Shoah. His intention here is as admirable as it is plain, and these pages contain some stirring and even uplifting material about human survival. But this serves only to make his genuine evenhandedness more poignant."-Christopher Hitchens, The Atlantic, 'Kai Bird has stepped back from the dreaded Middle Eastern present to create a spellbinding portrait of an earlier time. He grew up on the seam between Arabs and Israelis, an American in the heyday of American innocence and power. He has not adorned that past, for he was there when the region's current ordeal was hatched, but he has given a bittersweet rendition of a world now irretrievably gone. A beautiful memoir, and a supremely honest one.' —Professor Fouad Ajami, The School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University
Dewey Decimal956.94/42052092 B
Synopsis*From the Pulitzer Prize-winning coauthor of American Prometheus-- the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film Oppenheimer* Now with a new introduction, Kai Bird's fascinating memoir of his early years spent in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon provides an original and illuminating perspective into the Arab-Israeli conflict. In 1956, four-year-old Kai Bird, son of a charming American diplomat, moved to Jerusalem with his family. Kai could hear church bells and the Muslim call to prayer and watch as donkeys and camels competed with cars for space on the narrow streets. Each day on his way to school, Kai was driven through Mandelbaum Gate, where armed soldiers guarded the line separating Israeli-controlled West Jerusalem from Arab-controlled East. Bird would spend much of his life crossing such lines--as a child in Jerusalem, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and later, as a young man in Lebanon. In Crossing Mandelbaum Gate, a narrative that "rips along like a spy novel" ( The New York Times Book Review ), Bird's retelling of "events such as Suez in 1956, the Six Day War of 1967, and Black September in 1970 are as clear and fresh as yesterday" (The Spectator, UK). Bird vividly portrays emblematic figures like George Antonius, author of The Arab Awakening; Jordan's King Hussein; the Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled; Salem bin Laden; Saudi King Faisal; President Nasser of Egypt; and Hillel Kook, the forgotten rescuer of more than 100,000 Jews during World War II. Bird, his parents sympathetic to Palestinian self-determination and his wife the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, has written a "kaleidoscopic and captivating" (Publishers Weekly) personal history of a troubled region and an indispensable addition to the literature on the modern Middle East., PULITZER PRIZE WINNER KAI BIRD'S fascinating memoir of his early years spent in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon provides an original and illuminating perspective into the Arab-Israeli conflict. Weeks before the Suez War of 1956, four-year-old Kai Bird, son of a garrulous, charming American Foreign Service officer, moved to Jerusalem with his family. They settled in a small house, where young Kai could hear church bells and the Muslim call to prayer and watch as donkeys and camels competed with cars for space on the narrow streets. Each day on his way to school, Kai was driven through Mandelbaum Gate, where armed soldiers guarded the line separating Israeli-controlled West Jerusalem from Arab-controlled East. He had a front-seat view to both sides of a divided city--and the roots of the widening conflict between Arabs and Israelis. Bird would spend much of his life crossing such lines--as a child in Jerusalem, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and later, as a young man in Lebanon. Crossing Mandelbaum Gate is his compelling personal history of growing up an American in the midst of three major wars and three turbulent decades in the Middle East. The Zelig-like Bird brings readers into such conflicts as the Suez War, the Six Day War of 1967, and the Black September hijackings in 1970 that triggered the Jordanian civil war. Bird vividly portrays such emblematic figures as the erudite George Antonius, author of The Arab Awakening; Jordan's King Hussein; the Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled; Salem bin Laden, Osama's older brother and a family friend; Saudi King Faisal; President Nasser of Egypt; and Hillel Kook, the forgotten rescuer of more than 100,000 Jews during World War II. Bird, his parents sympathetic to Palestinian self-determination and his wife the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, has written a masterful and highly accessible book--at once a vivid chronicle of a life spent between cultures as well as a consummate history of a region in turmoil. It is an indispensable addition to the literature on the modern Middle East.
LC Classification NumberDS109.86.B56A3 2010
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