From the acclaimed author of God and Gold and Special Providence, a groundbreaking new work that overturns the conventional understanding of the Israeli-American relationship and explores the fate of the Jewish people. In this brilliant investigation, one of our premier scholars of American foreign policy contends that both pro- and anti-Zionists have unintentionally collaborated in a myth of monolithic American-Jewish support for Israel that exaggerates Jewish unity concerning Israel, overstates the influence of Jewish lobbyists, and underestimates the potential for change in the Israeli-American relationship. Mead unveils the little-known incidence of non-Jews such as J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller lobbying for a Jewish homeland well before the foundation of the modernist Zionist movement. He makes clear how, in contrast, many Jewish Americans feel at odds with Israel's right-wing nationalists; and how developments under both George W. Bush and Obama have driven the most heated American debate over Israel since the 1940s. Throughout, Mead's singular intelligence and lively prose penetrate layers of opaque history and politics, illuminating a better way forward.
Author
American academic. He is the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College and previously taught American foreign policy at Yale University. He is also the Editor-at-Large of The American Interest magazine and a Distinguished Scholar at the Hudson Institute. From 1997 to 2010, Mr. Mead was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, serving as the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy from 2003 until his departure. Mead writes regular essays at the website of the American Interest on a wide variety of subjects ranging from international affairs to religion, politics, culture, education and the media. Over the years he has contributed to a wide variety of leading American journals ranging from Mother Jones and GQ to the Wall Street Journal. He serves as a regular reviewer of books for Foreign Affairs and frequently appears on national and international radio and television programs. Mead is an honors graduate of Groton and Yale, where he received prizes for history, debate, and his translation of New Testament Greek. He has traveled widely in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America, and often speaks at conferences in the United States and abroad. He is a founding board member of New America, and also serves on the board of Freedom House.
