Israel-The Middle East-US History: A Reading List

As the first university press in the South, UNC Press pioneered in tackling issues of the day through the honest, and sometimes gritty, lens of reality, in order to challenge the status quo in a historically diverse and complex region. Our association with the oldest public university in the nation inspires in us a commitment to bring new and established peer-reviewed research to academic and general audiences—notably recognized for our publishing on US and world history—a mission that informs all we do.

Learn about the intertwined histories of Israel, the Middle East, and the US through the following selection of UNC Press titles. Request them at your library, or order directly via uncpress.org and receive a 30% discount on print format books using promo code 01SOCIAL30.

American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945, Third Edition
by Douglas Little
“Seldom has a book been more timely or essential than Douglas Little’s essays on American policy in the Middle East. . . . Little offers some refreshing clarity. He has combined broad reading and research with sober judgment to help readers understand the pattern of American Middle East policy.”—Journal of American History

Starstruck in the Promised Land: How the Arts Shaped American Passions about Israel
by Shalom Goldman
“A tour de force. . . . This highly recommended book will be not only of interest to students and academics with particular interest in how the arts shaped American passions about Israel, but any reader of US-Israel relations and political movers and shakers who require a better understanding of the complex social and political relationship between the US and the Israeli state.”—Journal of Religion and Popular Culture

Law and Identity in Mandate Palestine by Assaf Likhovski
“This is a fascinating, engaging, accessible and evocative book, which takes the study of Mandate Palestine into a new direction.”—Modern Law Review

Caught in the Middle East: US Policy toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1945-1961 by Peter L. Hahn
“A very well-researched and thorough analysis of America’s introduction to the Middle East as it emerged as [a] superpower. This lucid analysis of the complexities of the evolution of American foreign policy towards the Arab-Israel conflict provides a major contribution to the understanding both of the roots of US involvement in the region and of the complex formulation process of foreign policy in the United States.”—International Affairs

Israel and the Western Powers, 1952-1960 by Zach Levey
“In this well-written and concise volume, Israeli scholar Zach Levey not only recounts Israel’s quest for a firm patron-client relationship in the 1950s, but also describes what Israeli leaders sought to gain from such a relationship and what they thought they had to contribute to it.”—Diplomacy & Statecraft

The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939 by Kenneth W. Stein
“The first comprehensive, amply documented analysis of the land question in Palestine between the two world wars.”—New York Times

Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews, and the Idea of the Promised Land by Shalom Goldman
“Important if sometimes unsettling readings of history that could point to a reshaping of the traditional Zionist story. . . . A very useful and comprehensive review of the Protestant role in the establishment of Israel. . . . [A] necessary piece of historical housecleaning.”—Jewish Review of Books