A very good book to walk you through understanding much of the modern enmity plaguing Palestine and Israel.

Very engaging and readable. ( )

Even though this book is almost 20 years old it is extremely well written and gives the reader some excellent insights into the Arab-Israeli conflict. ( )

Very good depiction of the Middle East during Friedman's time there. The chapter on the leveling of Hama was especially interesting.

3496. From Beirut to Jerusalem, by Thomas L. Friedman (read Nov. 2, 2001) This won the National Book Award for non-fiction in 1989, which suggests it might be less than current. (I've heard there is new edition out, but I read the one that won the award.) It is a superlative book and I should have read it in 1989. Friedman was a reporter for the NY Times in the cities named in the title from 1979 to 1988, but the book has none of the defects of the usual journalistic book: Friedman tries to tell what happened rather than just reciting what he did on his assignment. He writes with clarity and makes much sense, and even puts forth a balanced plan for peace in the area. This was an excellent book, worth reading even a dozen years after it was written: in fact, it is very timely, in view of what is going on today in the world. ( )

This is an excellent read. The original edition was written in the 80s but reading it if feels like it could have been written yesterday. It contains great insights into the root causes of the issues that the world is facing in the middle east today. Thomas Friedman manages to be very objective and candid even though he is Jewish by birth. This is one of those books that you remeber no matter how long ago it was read. Small piece of trivia taken from the book "intifada= shake off" related to shake off the dependance on Israel. ( )