Publishers Weekly
06/17/2019
Israeli historian Segev (1967) provides an exhaustive biography of the country’s first prime minister. Drawing on his subject’s prolific writings and historical archives, Segev traces David Ben-Gurion’s life from his 1886 birth in the small Polish town of Płonsk to his death in 1973. As a teenager, Ben-Gurion lectured on Jewish independence; he moved to Palestine in 1906 (motivated by Zionist ideology but also personal unhappiness) and became a socialist labor organizer convinced that the conflict between his people’s aspirations and those of Palestinian Arabs couldn’t be resolved peacefully. He became a left-wing political leader and then the first prime minister of the new country upon its establishment in 1948. In perhaps the most newsworthy section, Segev writes that Ben-Gurion opposed the preemptive strike that launched the Six-Day War, because he accurately predicted that a victory involving the acquisition of more territory would dramatically increase the number of Arabs under Israeli control. Segev’s Ben-Gurion comes across as personally abrasive—an unfaithful spouse and indifferent parent who could be ruthless in pursuing his political goals. Segev persuasively shows how Ben-Gurion’s early choices foreshadowed those he would make later, but the book is sometimes weighed down by detail. The nonspecialist might be better served by less encyclopedic treatments. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
"Segev . . . has spent four decades exploring Ben-Gurion’s impact on Israel, in a body of work that has no equal either for the brilliance of his storytelling or the ironies of his analysis. He is neither a sentimental apologist for Ben-Gurion nor a crusading dethroner in the style of the New Historians with whom he has often been grouped. He is, rather, a student of power, and is at once fascinated and horrified by what he sees." —Adam Shatz, London Review of Books
"Long and rich in detail, A State at Any Cost offers a lucid account of Ben-Gurion’s tumultuous life and complex character . . . Segev handles this mixture of adolescent melancholy, secular rebelliousness, and fin-de-siècle ideologies with skill. He has a knack for weaving together the mundane and the momentous, the personal and the political. As in all his books, Segev doesn’t just relay facts, he captures sensibilities." —Assaf Sharon, The New York Review of Books
"[A] deeply researched, engrossing and, in some respects, controversial biography . . . Segev is best when probing the human side of the complex leader. Often brusque in manner, outwardly self-assured and iron-willed, Ben-Gurion poured his innermost emotions into his diaries and letters . . . Through the drama of his life, and despite his failings—both personal and political—Ben-Gurion emerges in Segev’s book as a man of vision and integrity." —Francine Klagsbrun, The New York Times Book Review
"The Israeli historian Tom Segev paints a conflicting portrait of Israel’s founder in his monumental A State at Any Cost . . . Unlike Ben-Gurion’s previous biographers, even the best of whom found it impossible not to stray at times in to hagiography, Segev is unsparing in his depiction of the less appealing sides of his private and political personalities. He also convincingly and meticulously builds the case for Ben-Gurion as a visionary leader, efficient organiser and persuasive advocate without whose efforts Israel, as an independent and sovereign state, may never have come into being." —Anshel Pfeffer, The Times (London)
"[A] fascinating biography . . . a masterly portrait of a titanic yet unfulfilled man . . . this is a gripping study of power, and the loneliness of power." —The Economist
"[A] meticulously researched biography . . . Segev makes several significant historiographical interventions, challenging conventional accounts of Ben-Gurion’s views and of the period of Israeli history during which he led the country . . . [he] deftly shows how many of Ben-Gurion’s decisions still reverberate in the lives of Israelis and Palestinians today." —Joshua Leifer, The Baffler
"Richly and comprehensively portrayed by Tom Segev, one of the “new historians” challenging Israel’s founding myths, this new biography of David Ben-Gurion presents the history of Zionism and the shaping of the state of Israel through the life and times of its most important founder and political leader." —Samuel Farber, Jacobin
"[An] inspiring account of the life and times of David Ben-Gurion . . . Tom Segev’s majestic biography will become mandatory reading for those who seriously wish to learn about the rise of Israel." —Colin Schindler, The Jewish Chronicle
"Deploying exhaustive research, which included access to previously unavailable archival material, Segev unearths a man of contradictions . . . what Segev’s deft unfolding of the trajectory of Ben-Gurion’s life makes clear is that his legacy is Israel itself." —Diane Cole, The Washington Post
"A magisterial work, sure to take its place as a standard reference . . . those who know Segev’s tours-de-force One Palestine, Complete, 1967, and The Seventh Million know that it is impossible for him to write an uninteresting sentence. There is nobody like Segev for knowing how to spin a yarn—and what a yarn this one is —and for developing a historical context for a narrative." —Jerome A. Chanes, The New York Jewish Week
"Writing without fear or favor, Tom Segev has authority . . . [A State at Any Cost] is also an oblique but illuminating history of the making of Israel." —David Pryce-Jones, The New Criterion
"[Segev] brings together an extraordinary number of both autobiographical and biographical materials to produce a beautiful portrait of a challenged and challenging leader, whose Zionist dream was achieved through a disparate mix of a bold vision and a tireless march through the intricacies of statecraft . . . Segev brings Ben-Gurion’s character to life and makes his efforts on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people deeply personal and poignant . . . A State at Any Cost is an engaging, entertaining, and at times a surprising portrait." —Jonathan Fass, Jewish Book Council
"To say that Segev has written another history of David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) would be an understatement . . . [A State at Any Cost is] a definitive biography of Israel's former prime minister . . . Scholars and devoted readers of political history, notably of the Middle East, will turn to Segev's majestic analysis of this pivotal leader for decades to come." —Library Journal
"Eminent Israeli journalist and historian [Tom Segev] chronicles the life of a driven leader who galvanized others to the exhausting, relentless pursuit of a state of Israel . . . A fair portrait of a difficult, hard-nosed character." —Kirkus
"Tom Segev's meticulously researched and most elegantly written new biography of David Ben-Gurion is a must for anybody interested in both the glorious and the dark pages of the history of Zionism and Israel, as reflected throughout the life and times of the Jewish State's most important founding father." —Saul Friedländer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Nazi Germany and the Jews and Where Memory Leads
“[A] carefully researched and nonjudgemental biography . . . Tom Segev’s A State at Any Cost aptly summarizes the lodestar of Ben-Gurion’s life.” —Avraham Avi-hai, The Jerusalem Post
“In the course of six years of research, Segev . . . discovered a leader fraught with dramatic contrasts . . . the author has come up with significant historical revelations.” —Ofer Aderet, Haaretz
“The beauty of Segev’s biography of Ben-Gurion is that Segev is less an analyst and more a meticulous historical detective. We are not offered a treatise on anti-Semitism, nationalism, or the historical migration patterns of Jews to the Land of Israel, but instead given a Ben-Gurion’s eye view of events. And this is enormously useful.” —Ben Judah, The American Interest
“Segev’s book is of immense value because it steers clear of mythology and presents his subject in all his complexity.” —Azriel Bermant, Fathom Journal
Kirkus Reviews
2019-06-16
The eminent Israeli journalist and historian chronicles the life of a driven leader who galvanized others to the exhausting, relentless pursuit of a state of Israel.
Born in Poland, David Ben-Gurion (1886-1943) was, from an early age, laser-focused on the creation of a Jewish state, and he was often perceived as heartless, especially—tellingly—by those closest to him. Segev (Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends, 2010, etc.) attributes this quality to the loss of his mother after another childbirth when he was 11, a trauma that colored all relationships Ben-Gurion had henceforth, especially those with women. Yet he also had an educated father who conducted legal business with Christians and established an early Zionist society in his Polish village which clearly influenced his son. The author clearly captures the relentless, rather oblivious quality of Ben-Gurion's personality as well as his quixotic side. He left for Warsaw as a teen, before his close group of boyhood friends did, and while he was confident he would gain entrance to a technological school—in order to learn skills to aid the new Jewish state—he lacked the essential ambition to complete the work. Instead, he immersed himself in the socialist labor alternative to Zionism, the Bund, and honed his leadership skills. As a leader, he traveled to America and the European capitals, drumming up support for the Zionist cause. The rise of Hitler and Nazi aggression changed everything, and Ben-Gurion regarded the tragedy not in terms of numbers of Jews murdered but rather as a setback for gaining settlers for the state. The 1948 declaration of the Jewish state signaled a celebration for everyone except Ben-Gurion, who knew it meant war and the sacrifice of Jewish lives. Essentially, he sanctioned the policy of forcible removal of Arab villagers during the war of independence; afterward, he noted, "an Arab is first and foremost an Arab." For him, there was no compromise, and the fortress mentality still festers to this day.
A fair portrait of a difficult, hard-nosed character who, like him or not, had enormous impact on 20th-century events.
