A STATE AT ANY COST
THE LIFE OF DAVID BEN-GURION
Ben-gurion was the founder of the state of Israel and its first prime minister, remaining in office from 1948 to 1963 but for a short break in 1954-55. This biography by Israeli historian Tom Segev is ‘a masterly portrait of a titanic yet unfulfilled man... a gripping study of power, and the loneliness of power,’ wrote the
Economist’s anonymous reviewer. While previous biographers have tended towards hagiography, wrote Anshel Pfeffer in the Times, Segev is ‘unsparing in his depiction of the less appealing sides of his private and political personalities’. At the same time, he ‘convincingly and meticulously builds the case for Ben-gurion as a visionary leader, efficient organiser and persuasive advocate without whose efforts Israel, as an independent and sovereign state, may never have come into being’. Francine Klagsbrun, in the New
York Times Book Review, agreed wholeheartedly. ‘Segev is best when probing the human side of the complex leader. Often brusque in manner, outwardly self-assured and iron-willed, Ben-gurion poured his innermost emotions into his diaries and letters... Through the drama of his life, and despite his failings – both personal and political – BenGurion emerges in Segev’s book as a man of vision and integrity.’ For
Washington Post reviewer Diane Cole, Segev shows ‘how quixotic this analytically minded man could be, consulting with a fortune teller and claiming at one point to have seen a UFO’... and how a man who was ‘often moralistic and not particularly known as a romantic, strayed from his wife, Paula, with at least four mistresses’. Yet he also ‘reveals how all these quirks, flaws and limitations coexisted, not always easily, with the energy, resourcefulness and acute political skills Ben-gurion honed to serve the goal of founding Israel.’