Throughout the last 100 years, Syria has been a crucial hub of Middle Eastern events. As the birth place and 'pulsating heart' of Arab nationalism, and as the object of colonial and regional ambitions, Syria has been transformed into a regional power exerting influence over its neighbors. Now available in paperback, this unique bestseller sheds new light on the recent history and current politics and policies of this important Middle Eastern country. Author Itamar Rabinovich is uniquely qualified to take a panoramic view of Syria's modern history and contemporary politics. As a scholar, he spent 35 years studying Syria in diplomatic archives and through the range of sources. As a diplomat, he was Yitzhak Rabin's chief negotiator with Syria and Israel's ambassador to Washington, and thus a key participant in some of the events addressed in the book. This enlarged second edition includes a new introduction, as well as two new chapters on the Israeli-Syrian-American peace negotiations and Israel's view of the Syrian uprising. The 23 essays by Rabinovich cover the century from the eve of the First World War to the Bush Administration's row with Bashar al-Asad. The essays focus on three principal themes: the notion of a Syrian entity and its translation into a Syrian state in its current boundaries; the conflict between rival concepts of the political community that inhabits the Syrian state; and issues of foreign policy with a particular emphasis on the Syrian-Israeli conflict and peace process. The main themes of Syrian history and politics are picked up at their inception and followed through the course of the 20th century to the present day.

Japan's modern international history began in 1858 with the signing of the "unequal" commercial treaty with the United States. Over the next fifteen years, Japanese diplomacy was reshaped to respond to the Western imperialist challenge. Negotiating with Imperialism is the first book to explain the emergence of modern Japan through this early period of treaty relations. Michael Auslin dispels the myth that the Tokugawa bakufu was diplomatically incompetent. Refusing to surrender to the West's power, bakufu diplomats employed negotiation as a weapon to defend Japan's interests. Tracing various visions of Japan's international identity, Auslin examines the evolution of the culture of Japanese diplomacy. Further, he demonstrates the limits of nineteenth-century imperialist power by examining the responses of British, French, and American diplomats. After replacing the Tokugawa in 1868, Meiji leaders initially utilized bakufu tactics. However, their 1872 failure to revise the treaties led them to focus on domestic reform as a way of maintaining independence and gaining equality with the West. In a compelling analysis of the interplay among assassinations, Western bombardment of Japanese cities, fertile cultural exchange, and intellectual discovery, Auslin offers a persuasive reading of the birth of modern Japan and its struggle to determine its future relations with the world.

"The Middle East peace process has been covered extensively by the press, but still has retained many of its secrets. In this book, a selection of articles by former senior Israeli diplomat, Mordechai Gazit, some of these secrets are revealed. The author offers a unique viewpoint on Arab-Israeli relations which is extremely relevant to participants, and to the current debate among historians concerning key events in Israel's history."--Jacket.

"This is a work of genuine discovery that uses both the methods and sources of first-rate scholarship. It is a valuable addition to the 'new thinking' about the Middle East, [although] there are many who will refute its contribution without so much as a glance at its first page because it was written by Elmer Berger. The loss is theirs. Who will gain are those, like Berger himself, with an open mind and a willingness to become familiar with new perspectives on an ancient controversy."--From the Foreword by Don Peretz, professor of political science, SUNY-Binghamton At the outset of the 1949 armistice negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, acting UN mediator Ralph Bunche expressed his hope that the talks would "chart the road to a peace for Palestine," an outcome apparently as elusive today as when he spoke those words more than forty years ago. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this meticulously documented analysis of those negotiations is its relevance for today's headlines. Relating the proposals and counterproposals, the conspiracies and power plays to present-day Israeli and Middle East policies, Berger suggests that the basic negotiating strategies of the main players have persisted almost unchanged into the present, a "near rigidity" that has defeated all efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East's central conflict. Berger is a controversial rabbi, an avowed anti-Zionist who proves himself capable of examining highly flammable issues and events with objectivity, insight, and rigorous scholarship. Drawing upon newly released material from official Israeli and U.S. archives, Berger manages to paint both the large picture and the telling detail--the frustrations of the conscientious and highly respected Bunche, the pathetically unprepared Arab negotiators, the well-informed Israeli diplomats, the intrigue of the Israel-Transjordan alliance. The work will serve serious observers of the prolonged conflict over Palestine as a guide to applicable international law and to the attitudes and negotiating policies of the countries involved. Elmer Berger has for twenty-five years been president of American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism, Inc., and has written and edited a number of books on Judaism and Jewish nationalism. At the outset of the 1949 armistice negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, acting UN mediator Ralph Bunche expressed his hope that the talks would "chart the road to a peace for Palestine," an outcome apparently as elusive today as when he spoke those words more than forty years ago. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this meticulously documented analysis of those negotiations is its relevance for today's headlines. Relating the proposals and counterproposals, the conspiracies and power plays to present-day Israeli and Middle East policies, Berger suggests that the basic negotiating strategies of the main players have persisted almost unchanged into the present, a "near rigidity" that has defeated all efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East's central conflict. Berger is a controversial rabbi, an avowed anti-Zionist who proves himself capable of examining highly flammable issues and events with objectivity, insight, and rigorous scholarship. Drawing upon newly released material from official Israeli and U.S. archives, Berger manages to paint both the large picture and the telling detail--the frustrations of the conscientious and highly respected Bunche, the pathetically unprepared Arab negotiators, the well-informed Israeli diplomats, the intrigue of the Israel-Transjordan alliance. The work will serve serious observers of the prolonged conflict over Palestine as a guide to applicable international law and to the attitudes and negotiating policies of the countries involved. Elmer Berger has for twenty-five years been president of American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism, Inc., and has written and edited a number of books on Judaism and Jewish nationalism.

the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 quickly ushered in a popular and political movement toward nuclear disarmament. Across the globe, heads of state, high-ranking ministers, and bureaucrats led intense efforts to achieve effective disarmament agreements. Ultimately these efforts failed. In The American Nuclear Disarmament Dilemma, David Tal offers a detailed analysis of U.S. policy from 1945 to the summer of 1963, exploring the reasons for failure and revealing the complex motivations that eventually led to the Limited Test Ban Treaty. While previous books have focused on the policies of specific administrations, Tal’s is the first to consider negotiations as an evolving phenomenon that preoccupied three presidents, from Truman to Kennedy. Drawing on extensive archival research, the author examines the profound dilemma faced by leaders on all sides—forced by political pressure to engage in negotiations whose success they saw as injurious to national interests. Far from believing that the nuclear arms race would inevitably lead to war, the United States regarded nuclear weapons as the greatest guarantee that war would not happen.

One of the South's most urgent priorities in the Civil War was obtaining the recognition of foreign governments. Edwin De Leon, a Confederate propagandist charged with wooing Britain and France, opens up this vital dimension of the war in the earliest known account by a Confederate foreign agent. First published in the New York Citizen in 1867-68, De Leon's memoir subsequently sank out of sight until its recent rediscovery by William C. Davis, one of the Civil War field's true luminaries. Both reflective and engaging, it brims with insights and immediacy lacking in other works, covering everything from the diplomatic impact of the Battle of Bull Run to the candid opinions of Lord Palmerston to the progress of secret negotiations at Vichy. De Leon discusses, among other things, the strong stand against slavery by the French and a frustrating policy of inaction by the British, as well as the troubling perceptions of some Europeans that the Confederacy was located in South America and that most Americans were a cross between Davy Crockett and Sam Slick. With France's recognition a priority, De Leon published pamphlets and used French journals in a futile attempt to sway popular opinion and pressure the government of Napoleon III. His interpretation of the latter's meeting with Confederate diplomat John Slidell and the eventual mediation proposal sheds new light on that signal event. De Leon was a keen observer and a bit of a gossip, and his opinionated details and character portraits help shed light on the dark crevices of the South's doomed diplomatic efforts and provide our only inside look at the workings of Napoleon's court and Parliament regarding the Confederate cause. Davis adds an illuminating introduction that places De Leon's career in historical context, reveals much about his propagandist strategies, and traces the history of the Secret History itself. Together they open up a provocative new window on the Civil War.