Mindy Belz’s story in this issue, “Conflict within and without,” explains a lot about Israel’s past and future. The misinformation and propaganda flowing from Muslim countries prompted this request earlier in 2017 from a longtime WORLD member:

“Yesterday, when I was walking with my daughter (well into adulthood and a committed Christian), I was shocked to hear her refer to the Israeli wars of 1949 and 1967 as ‘land grabs’ for their own purposes. … Her view troubled me and made me wonder if perhaps I had missed something. I had always understood those to be wars of defense against surrounding Arab nations whose goal was to wipe Israel off the map. But I know that events of history aren’t always presented accurately, so … what books would you suggest that would give me an accurate perspective on the history of modern Israel and its struggles?”

I recommended 10 books, two by two.

First, solid historical overviews: Daniel Gordis’ Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn (Ecco, 2016) and Eric Gartman’s Return to Zion: The History of Modern Israel (Jewish Publication Society, 2015). Second, books showing both sides of the current debate: George Gilder’s The Israel Test (Richard Vigilante Books, 2009) shows why we should be pro-Israel, and Avi Shlaim’s The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (Norton, 2000 and 2014) offers a critical, “revisionist” view.

Third, two books showing why mainline U.S. churches and college campuses have become anti-Israel machines. Joshua Muravchik’s Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel (Encounter, 2014) illuminates a deadly combination of terrorism, petroleum, leftist orthodoxy, and pro-Muslim populism. Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism, and Delegitimizing Israel, edited by Robert Wistrich (University of Nebraska, 2016), connects the dots noted in the title. Fourth, two books charting the past and present of Christian Zionism: Raymond Gannon’s The Shifting Romance with Israel (Destiny Image, 2012) and Gerald McDermott, ed., The New Christian Zionism (IVP Academic, 2016).

A final pair of books will help readers contextualize Israel: Michael Brenner’s A Short History of the Jews (Princeton, 2012) is a scholarly but readable overview, and Stan Mack’s The Story of the Jews: A 4,000-Year Adventure (Jewish Lights, 2001) is an amusing cartoon version that gets serious about tragic parts of the story, but wrongly shows Paul the apostle (who died at Roman hands) holding a sign proclaiming, “Monotheism made easy. Gain without pain.”

Bookmarks

Few fundamentalists in the early 20th century saw any way Bible believers and theological liberals could coexist. Douglas Carl Abrams in Old-Time Religion Embracing Modernist Culture (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017) uncovers the roots of American evangelicalism in fundamentalist tensions between the two world wars.

Judith Matloff’s No Friends but the Mountains: Dispatches from the World’s Violent Highlands (Basic, 2017) describes blood feuds and other murderous traditions in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, but asserts a geographical determinism that leaves out a crucial three-letter word: sin. Garrison Nelson’s John William McCormack (Bloomsbury, 2017) describes the 42-year congressional career of wheeler-dealer McCormack, speaker of the House during the 1960s, but his political sins did not keep him from dining nightly with his wife and cutting the meat on her plate: The Democratic Party was once rooted in family values.

Sin figures in many of the 20 essays by historian Gertrude Himmelfarb that constitute Past and Present (Encounter, 2017). She follows William James in disrespecting those who say it’s “morbid” to talk of “the sinfulness and depravity of man” and respecting the twice-born (we might say born-again) who refuse to overlook the evil that is “a genuine portion of reality.”

Religion reporter Mark Pinsky’s new e-book edition of The Gospel According to the Simpsons shows trends since the original book’s publication 10 years ago: more religious mentions overall and less ridicule of evangelical neighbor Ned Flanders. All-Star game special: Baseball Beyond Our Borders, edited by George Gmelch and Daniel Nathan (University of Nebraska, 2017), shows Major League Baseball’s attempt to grab talent and fans in other countries. —M.O.