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Bernard Wasserstein ListingsIf you cannot find what you want on this page, then please use our search feature to search all our listings. Click on Title to view full description
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Bernard Wasserstein Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy City (Yale Nota Bene)
Yale University Press 2002 0300097301 / 9780300097306 Paperback Near fine n/a Paperback
New. Near fine in publisher's decorated wrappers. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.Intractable conflicts concerning religion and national sovereignty have always intertwined around Jerusalem. Focusing on diplomacy from antiquity to the present, Wasserstein (Vanishing Diaspora), a professor of history at Glasgow University and president of the Jewish Historical Society of England, traces the city's constant transformations in size, infrastructure and political rule. At various times, Egyptians, Turks, French, British, Israelis and Jordanians have controlled parts of Jerusalem. Moreover, while it has always been considered a "holy city," its holiness "is neither a constant nor an absolute" but rather a human construct that has "waxed and waned" over the centuries for Muslims, Jews and Christians alike. Wasserstein also follows intriguing, less-traveled lines of investigation, such as the diminishing Christian presence during the 20th century. Even as the violence in Jerusalem continues, the historical perspective offered in these pages provides hope for a way out. The author locates the Camp David negotiations, for instance, in a broad historical context: the Israeli-American proposal "for allowing Jews to pray on the Mount and the possible designation of a special section for that purpose... marked... a radical departure from both Muslim and Jewish tradition as well as from the policy of every Israeli government since 1967." In Wasserstein's view, a power-sharing solution is possible only if religious and national interests are separated. Though he doesn't offer a specific solution, his sympathies seem to lie with aspects of the now-moribund Oslo peace accord. This astute, incisive treatment of an age-old struggle erupting in a present-day crisis adds a calm, thoughtful voice to the debates. Maps. (Sept.)Forecast: Wasserstein's glowing reputation and his planned lectures in Boston, New York and Washington will win this book a lot of attention..... Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. .... "A book which deserves praise for its meticulous scholarship, cool judgment, and even-handed, non-partisan consideration of an impossible problem." -- Frank McLynn, The Glasgow Herald.... "A valuable and lucid analysis of just how divided Jerusalem is." -- Hyam Maccoby, Evening Standard.... "Astute, incisive treatment of an age-old struggle erupting in a present-day crisis…a calm, thoughtful voice to the debates." -- Publishers Weekly.... "Interesting and articulate . . . traces the struggles of a plethora of religious and national groups to control Jerusalem over two millennia." -- Colin Shindler, Jerusalem Post.... "Interesting and articulate…traces the struggles of a plethora of religious and national groups to control Jerusalem over two millennia." -- Colin Shindler, Jerusalem Post.... "One of our most distinguished writers on Jewish history . . . [provides] a well informed and penetrating exploration of 'the Jerusalem question.'" -- Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Sunday Times (London).... "Scrupulously unbiased." -- Harvey Morris, Financial Times.... "Wasserstein . . . writes clearly and dispassionately on a theme that has been more clichÚ-ridden than most." -- Amos Elon, The New York Review --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Price:
5.74 GBP
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Bernard Wasserstein Secret War in Shanghai
Houghton Mifflin (Trade) 30/05/2000 0395985374 / 9780395985373 Hardcover Fine Near fine Hardcover
New. Fine in publisher's quarter bound boards in near fine, slightly rubbed dust jacket. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.Before World War II, Shanghai was China's leading commercial center and the most vital and glamorous of Asia's great cities. Against the background of civil war, Shanghai was administered by a consortium of international powers intent on exploiting a defenseless China. The city's seizure by the Imperial Japanese Army in December 1941 ended much of its glitter but not its role as a den of espionage, corruption, and vice. Bernard Wasserstein deftly sets the complex scene as the different powerbrokers, from ambassadors to gangsters, accommodated to the occupying Japanese. The cast of characters is bizarre, ranging from master spies such as Richard Sorge, whose coup was to warn Stalin of Germany's impending invasion, to imposters and petty secret agents living on their wits. People were not what they seemed: the author reveals the often sordid realities behind his protagonists' masks as they struggled for survival and each others' secrets. Richly researched from original sources, Secret War in Shanghai is particularly successful in painting vivid pictures of the different national groups that found themselves caught up in the city's vortex: destitute White Russians, refugees from Hitler's Germany, British taipans trying to hang onto their business interests. The story moves as fast as a racy novel, yet it is all meticulously documented fact. --John Stevenson ... On the eve of WWII, Shanghai contained two foreign enclaves, a French Concession and an International Settlement, each ruled by a small minority of foreigners for their own economic advantage. These enclaves, which sheltered a melange of entrepreneurs and rogues, adventurers and self-promoters, are the setting for Wasserstein's account of the war years in Shanghai, a city rife with violence, vice, colonial hauteur and espionage. Wasserstein's ability to ferret out long-forgotten information from obscure archives shows on every page of this close examination of the behavior of Shanghai's foreign community under the pressure of the Japanese occupation. There are no persons or events of high importance, no battles of consequence, no intelligence breakthroughs. Paradoxically, it is exactly this absence of momentous historical drama that gives the book its charm. This is a study in microcosm of local conditions in Shanghai, where a rag-tag collection of professional survivors adapted to shifting circumstances as the war progressed, and where the intelligence services of many nations labored with equal energy and futility. Wasserstein recounts the careers of many of the more colorful and, in some instances, sinister of Shanghai's spies and opportunists. If the canvas is a bit too crowded, it should still appeal to those who find irresistible the lifestyles of the eccentric, the raffish and the villainous. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Price:
6.29 GBP
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