The Making of Israel's Army

"Allon recounts the growth of the Israeli army from its inception in the 1880's, when Jewish communities in Palestine formed their first small self-defence groups, through the Haganah's clandestine period in the 1920's and 30's and the fighting after 1945 when army and state together achieved legality, to the Sinai Campaign of 1956 and the Six-Day War in June 1967 when the army reached maturity... His precise, economical narrative, interspersed with brief passages of analysis, is supplement...