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LAWRENCE DAVIDSON, America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood (Gainesville: University Press of Florida). Pp. 264

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2004

ANTONIO DONNO
Affiliation:
University of Lecce, Lecce, Italy; e-mail: andonno@ilenic.unile.it

Extract

The last chapter in Lawrence Davidson's book is titled “Colonizing the American Mind,” with a purpose to reverse the interpretation of Peter Grose's famous book Israel in the American Mind (1983). Actually, the whole of Davidson's book aims to revise the traditional historiographical approach, which has highlighted the strong bond between American values and those of the Jewish state. Davidson has been criticizing this approach since the beginning, focusing his argument on the concept of imperialism, which has produced, according to him, a serious alteration in the West's attitude toward the East. However, as will be shown, the concept of imperialism—based on the traditional separation between a civilized, advanced, and efficient West and an East in need of protection and leadership, which Davidson uses as a basic negative criterion for all his interpretation—is weak, outdated, and, above all, too ideological.

Type
BOOK REVIEWS
Copyright
2004 Cambridge University Press

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