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The Invention of a Nation, Zionist Thought and the Making of Modern Israel, by Alain Dieckhoff, New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. xi + 289 pages. Index to p. 297. $30.
The last sentence of this otherwise comprehensive and interesting book by Alain Dieckhoff encapsulates my main criticism of the study. That sentence reads: "It [the rediscovered consensus] is proof that Zionism, as a historical representation of the destiny of the Jews, still has plenty of life ahead of it" (p. 289). Yet, I cannot understand why the author, having reached this hopefully accurate conclusion, decided to entitle the book The Invention of a Nation. I imagine that the only answer lies in the theoretical school to which the author appears to belong, namely, the constructivists, who regard nationalism and the nation in general as an invented reality, rather than as a genuine historical entity. To my taste, the ethnonationalist school represented by sociologists...