Publishers Weekly
06/27/2022
Mead (God and Gold), a professor of foreign affairs at Bard College, delivers a sweeping study of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. Stretching from the colonial era to the present day, Mead’s comprehensive history analyzes the impacts of Christianity’s changing attitudes toward Judaism and Jews; broad political trends that enabled the acceptance of Jewish people “as active members of the American commonwealth,” exemplified by George Washington’s 1790 letter to the congregation of Touro Synagogue in Newport, R.I.; and economic developments such as the rise of labor unions. Revealing inconvenient facts for both Palestinians and Israelis (“Most of the land that Zionists settled before 1947 was freely sold to them by Arabs”), Mead forcefully critiques Yasser Arafat for rejecting a peace agreement proposed by the Clinton administration and contends that U.S. foreign policy toward Israel is governed by self-interest. Though he declines to offer detailed prescriptions for how American leaders should handle Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Iranian funding of Hamas, and other contentious matters, Mead provides more than enough context to understand them. The result is a valuable resource for policymakers and voters alike. (July)
From the Publisher
A New York Times Best Book of the Year
“A sweeping and masterfully told history . . . The prose is among the best I’ve encountered in 25 years of reviewing foreign-policy books. . . . Mead manages to keep the book’s tone high-minded and generous; when discussing his, or Israel’s, adversaries, he always strives to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.”—Jonathan Tepperman, The New York Times
“Impressive and timely . . . Magisterial . . . Mead leads us with an even tone and expert hand through centuries of history, and through disparate topics. . . . An ambitious and idiosyncratic history of large swaths of Western politics and thought. Implicitly, and perhaps even more important, the book makes a case that complicated and sensitive topics can still be covered with balance, sympathy, and even occasional humor.”—Matti Friedman, The Atlantic
“An essential contribution to the literature of politics and diplomacy in the Middle East . . . Writing fluently and with a depth born of decades of study, Mead urges that Israelis and Palestinians work harder to achieve ever elusive peace in the region.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Magisterial . . . Mead’s assessment of the complicated entanglement of Jews, Israel and the United States testifies powerfully to . . . the imperative to understand the past to ensure the future. I suspect that Mead wrote this book to guide us there. The Arc of a Covenant, drawing from the past to speak to today, merits a wide audience.”—Pamela S. Nadell, The Washington Post
"Engagingly written, intensely thought-provoking and very compelling... [This is] certainly not another standard diplomatic history... Rather, Mead’s work offers a sweeping and eye-opening review of the history of America’s domestic and foreign policies, and how these policies have shaped and have been shaped by the American–Israeli relationship." —David Rodman, Israel Affairs
“Mead’s is a singular achievement . . . that will be hard to replicate, in either its breadth or its balanced arguments. . . . The sweeping history, spanning from the 18th century to the present, could have come only from a first-class writer, storyteller, and generalist like Mead.”—Daniel G. Hummel, Christianity Today
“[An] epic history . . . Perhaps better than any other book yet written, it reveals the sources of American Zionism, back to America’s own founding. . . . The Arc of a Covenant is history on a grand scale — intellectual, social, cultural, political.”—Mario Loyola, Washington Examiner
“[The Arc of a Covenant is] a wonderful book. . . . It really plumbs historical depth with depth and a lot of wisdom and probing insights. . . . You should read it.”—Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel
“In his history of America, Israel, and the Jewish people, Walter Russell Mead deftly explores contentious issues with powers of empathy and analysis for which he is known from his columns. The Arc of a Covenant is an extraordinary contribution to the growing literature on the complexities and opportunities of U.S. foreign policy in Europe and the Middle East. A thoughtful, learned, and engaging book.”—Henry Kissinger
“Passionate and scholarly, insightful and inspiring, The Arc of a Covenant is an essential work for historians, journalists, and decision-makers, and all those wishing to understand the depth of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Walter Russell Mead, the world's leading expert on the role of faith in American foreign policy, has provided us with a masterwork.”—Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the United States
“Walter Russell Mead is today’s most penetrating writer on geopolitics because he also is an extraordinarily accomplished historian. Readers of this mind-opening book will acquire a fresh understanding of the United States, of Israel, and of the surprisingly complex relations between two of the world’s most vibrant democracies.”—George F. Will, syndicated columnist
“The Arc of a Covenant reshapes our understanding of the American-Israel relationship and its Jewish components, elegantly dispatching misconceptions and prejudices to show the genuine dynamics at work. An erudite, graceful, and altogether necessary work.”—Rabbi David Wolpe, author of Why Faith Matters
“Big, brilliant, and ambitious, The Arc of a Covenant feels like the definitive word on a thorny topic that has exceeded the grasp of most authors—until now. Meticulous, panoramic, and brimming with intellectual generosity, Walter Russell Mead has written something essential for anyone interested in the history of ideas that shaped the American imagination of Israel and the Jewish people. In so doing, he also manages the unlikely and welcome feat of helping us understand something new about the American idea itself.”—Shadi Hamid, author of Islamic Exceptionalism
“The Arc of a Covenant is not only a book about the history of the U.S.-Israel relationship, it is a fascinating and erudite exploration of the moral, political, and economic currents and cross-winds that shape American foreign policy. At a time when those forces are once again buffeting the United States, it’s a thought-provoking and valuable read.”—Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America
“No writer on the complexities of American foreign policy is better at getting to the heart of the matter than Walter Russell Mead. And no issue is more in need of the Mead treatment than the U.S.-Israel relationship. Dismissive of those who obsessively see an ‘Israel lobby’ behind every American move in the region, Mead shows how successive administrations have pursued the elusive ‘peace in the Middle East’ as much for domestic as for strategic reasons. You will think differently about American and Jewish history after reading this ambitious book.”—Niall Ferguson, author of Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe
“Walter Russell Mead is undoubtedly the preeminent expert on how U.S. foreign policy is shaped by American political, cultural and religious processes. The Arc of a Covenant is the definitive book on how the highly-contested U.S. relationship with Israel has been crafted over time by national institutions and conversations. This indispensable analysis of a widely misunderstood issue is likely to remain essential for decades.”—Hussein Ibish, Senior Resident Scholar, Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington
“Few authors make sense of American foreign policy as convincingly as Walter Russell Mead. In The Arc of a Covenant, Walter shows that U.S. support for Israel is ingrained in American political culture and critical to America’s strategy for world order. This book is indispensable reading for everyone who cares about the future of U.S.-Israel relations.”—Dan Senor, coauthor of Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle
Library Journal
★ 06/01/2022
Mead's (God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World) engaging book is certainly an eye-opening read for anyone interested in U.S.-Israel foreign policy. In nearly 700 pages, Mead engages readers with his thoughts on the historical arc between the U.S. and its relationship with Jewish people and Israel. This volume, 10 years in the making, will challenge many widely held assumptions on the conventional narrative surrounding this long-standing relationship. The author supplies an overview of the political and cultural context of U.S. support from colonial times to the present. He reviews the words and actions from George Washington, Theodore Herzl, to American support for the Balfour Declaration, and American Christians who support the State of Israel. Additionally, Mead addresses issues underpinning the criticisms of U.S.-Israel foreign policy and the Israel-Palestinian dispute. VERDICT A meticulously written and engaging volume that may make readers pause and reconsider an issue they thought they already knew. Best suited for those interested in the history of the Middle East, Israel, U.S. studies, and Jewish history.—Jacqueline Parascandola
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2022-06-08
A veteran foreign policy scholar explores the ups and downs in the complex friendship between the U.S. and Israel.
“There are few subjects in American foreign policy that get as much attention as the relationship between the world’s only Jewish state and the global superpower,” writes Mead, author of God and Gold and Special Providence, among other trenchant works on the far-reaching tentacles of American foreign policy. Even so, much of that literature is biased and wrongheaded. In the complicated business of foreign policy, writes the author, “even experts go badly wrong, and history is full of examples in which very serious and thoughtful people have fundamentally mistaken the nature of the forces with which they were trying to deal.” So it is with Israel, a nation resolute in insisting that it be allowed to live on its own terms even while being closely shepherded by the U.S. In Mead’s view, the idea that Jews somehow secretly control the U.S. government and media, to say nothing of its finances, is not worth discussing. Far more important is the seemingly intractable issue of political balance in the always-volatile region, with American political leaders so often favoring close ties with authoritarian Arab states even as dollars-and-cents–minded policymakers have had to negotiate ways to “ensure the security of the oil producers…so that no single power had the ability to interrupt the oil flow.” A nuclear Israel has complicated that already tangled state of affairs even as an aggressive settler regime under Benjamin Netanyahu has further destabilized regional relations. Writing fluently and with a depth born of decades of study, Mead urges that Israelis and Palestinians work harder to achieve ever elusive peace in the region, holding that “the creation of a Palestinian state will move both sides closer to a mutually acceptable accommodation.”
An essential contribution to the literature of politics and diplomacy in the Middle East.
