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  • Bible and Sword

  • England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour
  • By: Barbara W. Tuchman
  • Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
  • Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (12 ratings)

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Bible and Sword cover art

Bible and Sword

By: Barbara W. Tuchman
Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
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Publisher's Summary

Two-time Pulitzer Prize - winning historian Barbara Tuchman explores the complex relationship of Britain to Palestine that led to the founding of the modern Jewish state - and to many of the problems that plague the Middle East today.

From early times, the British people have been drawn to the Holy Land through two major influences: the translation of the Bible into English and, later, the imperial need to control the road to India and access to the oil in the Middle East. Under these influences, one cultural and the other political, 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 characterizes 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 brought together at the end of World War I when Britain's conquest of Palestine 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.

In her account, first published in 1956, Ms. Tuchman demonstrates that the seeds of today's troubles in the Middle East were planted long before the first efforts at founding a modern state of Israel.

©1984 Barbara W. Tuchman (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic Reviews

"Barbara Tuchman is a wise and witty writer, a shrewd observer with a lively command of high drama." ( Philadelphia Inquirer)
"In her métier as a narrative popular historical writer, Barbara Tuchman is supreme." ( Chicago Sun-Times)

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  • jdk
  • 22-01-2019

Dated

Ms Tuchman's first foray into a History, to me, is sadly dated and riddled with inadequate analysis and prejudice. She makes little attempt to disguise her contempt for the Turks, most Arabs and other "Mohammadians".

The work, sadly, is a product of the views of its times. Race and its percieved characteristics are given undue prominence and I was left with the impression that management under British Empire was our best hope for The Levant.

I have greatly enjoyed, and learned under Ms. Tuchman's tutelage in the past. Her other works are better, but I suspect I've grown, and my views have a more subtle basis. In this case my learning was obstructed by the anglophone prejudice and nationalist bias of this text.

It is interesting, in this time of Brexit, to hear England and Britian used as synonyms, when we now know, other than through the exercise of power, they are not.

This is the lowest rating I've given an audio book which I not returned unread. Also, I would not suggest others not read this text, but would suggest they keep in mind, that it represents a narrative, perhaps still held by some, of a contructed Truth, as flawed as all such Truths are eventually found to be.

Ms. McCaddon's reading was mercifully brisk and competent. She ably caught Ms. Tuchman's tone, and I found her accent appropriately carried the views the text expressed.

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