Zionism Short Histories of Big Ideas Series

Zionism is an international political movement that was originally dedicated to the resettlement of Jewish people in the Promised Land, and is now synonymous with support for the modern state of Israel. This addition to the Short Histories of Big Ideas series looks at the controversial and topical notion of Zionism from a balanced viewpoint, concentrating on where it came from, how it accomplished its goals, and why it affected so many people.

I. The Idea of a Jewish State
A. Self-Representations of Zionist Origins
B. Jewish Settlement in Palestine before Zionism
C. Europe and the Near East Between Multinational Empire and Nation-State
D. The Origins of Jewish Nationalism
II. Crystallization of a Movement, 1881-97
A. New Jewish Immigration and Settlement Patterns in Palestine
B. Conflicting Concepts: Palestine as a Refuge and a National Home
C. The Beginnings of Western European Jewish Involvement in Palestine
D. Theodor Herzl and the Establishment of the World Zionist Organization
III. Zionist Diplomacy and Jewish Settlement under Ottoman Rule, 1897-1918
A. Political, Practical, and Synthetic Zionism
B. The Second Aliyah and its Impact on Zionist Development
C. The Beginnings of Zionist-Arab Friction
D. World War I, the Balfour Declaration, and the Rise of Palestinian Nationalism
IV. Growth of the Zionist Enterprise under the British Mandate, 1918-29
A. The Structure of the Mandatory Regime
B. Building Palestine's Economic Infrastructure
C. The Hegemony of the Labor Movement and the Revisionist Challenge
D. Building a New Jewish National Culture
V. The End of British-Zionist Cooperation, 1929-48
A. Arab Opposition Mounts; Britain Rethinks the Mandate
B. The Rise of Nazism and the Struggle over Immigration
C. The Idea of Partition and its Challenge to Zionist Thought
D. Britain as Enemy
VI. The Partitioned State, 1948-67
A. Proclaiming Independence and the 1948 War
B. New Tasks for Zionism: The Post-Holocaust Jewish World
C. Mass Immigration and Social Change
D. Israels Relations with the Arab World
VII. Greater Israel, 1967-
A. The Six-Day War and its Effects
B. Religious Zionism: Messianic Influences in Israeli Politics and Culture
C. The 1973 War and the Tribulations of the Peace Process
D. Facing the Palestinians
VIII. Towards a New Era?
A. Non-Jews in a Jewish State
B. The Impact of Globalization
C. Jewish or Israeli?
D. The Post-Zionist Debates

David Engel is Maurice Greenberg Professor of Holocaust Studies, Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Professor of History at the Skirball Dept of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. He is a Longman author (SSH: The Holocaust, 2000) and famous for his seminal work In the Shadow of Auschwitz (Uni North Carolina Press, 1987) and its sequel Facing a Holocaust (Uni North Carolina Press, 1993).