Canter Bridge

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Martin Gilbert does not write small books.

It’s a good deal that we have this man around at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and that we can read the large works he gave us in the twentieth.

It’s wise to understand what you get when Gilbert fixes his gaze on a man (Churchill), a war (the Second), or a disputed piece of turf and the people who live on it (Israel). You get a writer of eminent capability for working through data, one who knows his mind very well, one who expresses himself with a brilliantly English turn of phrase, and one with whom you won’t always agree (evident from some reviews of the book in hand).

Gilbert is deeply sympathetic with the phenomenon and the nation we call Israel. As a man whose ethics run deeper than Realpolitik, he doesn’t attempt to justify all that has happened under that Israeli flag or its predecessors, though neither does he shift the burden of proof always to Israeli shoulders. Readers will be wise to supplement Gilbert’s work with others more cognizant of Palestinian grievances.

Yet not to read and to appreciate Martin Gilbert’s way of doing history—even the history of so contentious a place as Israel—is to remain impoverished and to misunderstand what can be learned of Israel as seen through Gilbert’s lens.

This book is a dense read, but interested learners will not find it too difficult. It is widely available both used and in discount bookstores. In this reviewer’s opinion, you never go wrong in picking up a Gilbert.