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Golda, May 2008
Hardcover
Harper
May 2008
On Sale: April 29, 2008
469 pages ISBN: 0060786655 EAN: 9780060786656 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
The first female head of state in the Western world and one
of the most influential women in modern history, Golda Meir
was a member of the tiny coterie of founders of the State of
Israel, the architect of its socialist infrastructure, and
its most tenacious international defender. Her
uncompromising devotion to shaping and defending a Jewish
homeland against dogged enemies and skittish allies stunned
political contemporaries skeptical about the stamina of an
elderly leader, and transformed Middle Eastern politics for
decades to follow. A blend of Emma Goldman and Martin Luther King Jr. in the
guise of a cookie-serving grandmother, Meir was a
tough-as-nails politician who issued the first prescient
warnings about the rise of international terrorism,
out-maneuvered Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger at their
own game of realpolitik, and led Israel through a bloody war
even as she eloquently pleaded for peace. A prodigious
fundraiser and persuasive international voice, Golda carried
the nation through its most perilous hours while she herself
battled cancer. In this masterful biography, critically acclaimed author and
Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist Elinor Burkett looks
beyond Meir's well-known accomplishments to the complex
motivations and ideals, personal victories and
disappointments, of her charismatic public persona.
Beginning with Meir's childhood in virulently anti-Semitic
Russia and her family's subsequent relocation to the United
States, Burkett places Meir within the framework of the
American immigrant experience, the Holocaust, and the
single-mindedness of a generation that carved a nation out
of its own nightmares and dreams. She paints a vivid
portrait of a legendary woman defined by contradictions: an
iron resolve coupled with magnetic charm, an utter
ordinariness of appearance matched to extraordinary
achievements, a kindly demeanor that disguised a stunning
hard-heartedness, and a complete dedication to her country
that often overwhelmed her personal relationships. To produce this definitive account of Meir's life, Burkett
mined historical records never before examined by any
researcher, and interviewed members of Meir's inner circle,
many going on record for the first time. The result is an
astounding portrait of one of the most commanding political
presences of the twentieth century—a woman whose
uncompromising commitment to the creation and preservation
of a Jewish state fueled and framed the ideological
conflicts that still define Middle Eastern relations today.
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