Image via Wikipedia
It had been a while since I read a really great history book, but that changed recently.
I picked up Michael Oren’s excellent work Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
Not only was it fast-paced and exciting, but it was incredibly thorough and, I thought, very well-balanced.
You might not expect this from the guy who is currently the Israeli Ambassador to the US, but he clearly did his homework in interviews with the Arabs as well.
What I loved is that he provided a LOT of context. A LOT.
With the passage of time, it’s easy to forget some of the things that were critical…like the Cold War, for example, but Oren’s narrative shows you the multi-faceted and complex issues that existed then and still exist now.
If you want to understand the modern Middle East, this is worth it.
