The Invention of a Nation: Zionist Thought and the Making of Modern Israel

For two centuries, according to Alain Dieckhoff, the Jews were remarkable experimenters. Reacting to the challenge of modernity, Jews followed two, often torturously contradictory paths -- the path of assimilation (bourgeois or socialist) and that of nationalism.This book provides a comprehensive overview of the various ideologies that have constituted Zionism, ranging from Marxist-Zionism to National Religious Zionism to that of the far-right Abba Achimeir. Unlike other studies of the topic, this book makes explicit the debt the Zionists owed to French thinkers and European ideologues, notably those associated with the French Revolution and the Enlightenment.

Alain Dieckhoff is a senior research fellow at the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI) in Paris.