A Brief Global History of the Left

What is happening to the Left? It seems to be dying a slow death. While many commentators have predicted its demise, the Left has always defied these bleak prognoses and risen from the ashes in the most unexpected ways. Nevertheless, we are witnessing today a global decline in organized movements on the Left, and while social struggles continue to challenge dominant political regimes, these efforts do not translate into support for traditional left parties or into the creation of dynamic movements on the Left. Bestselling historian Shlomo Sand argues that the global decline of the Left is linked to the waning of the idea of equality that has united citizens in the past and inspired them to engage in collective action.&nbsp; Sand retraces the evolution of this idea in a wide-ranging account that includes the Diggers and Levellers of seventeenth-century England; the French Revolution; the birth of anarchism and Marxism; the decolonial, feminist, and civil rights revolts; and the left-wing populism of our time. In piecing together the thinkers and movements that built the Left over centuries, Sand illuminates the global and transnational dynamics which pushed them forward. He outlines how they shaped the notion of equality, while also analysing how they were confronted by its material reality, and the lessons that they did - or did not - draw from this.&nbsp; This concise and magisterial history of the Left will appeal to anyone interested in the idea of equality and the fate of one of the most important movements that has shaped the modern world.

Politics & Social Sciences

Sand, Shlomo

Philosophy

Polity

What is happening to the Left? It seems to be dying a slow death. While many commentors have predicted its demise, the Left has always defied these bleak prognoses and risen from the ashes in the most unexpected ways. Nevertheless, we are witnessing today a global decline in organized movements on the Left, and while social struggles and rebellious citizens continue to challenge dominant political regimes, these efforts do not translate into support for traditional left parties or into the creation of dynamic movements on the left. Bestselling historian Shlomo Sand argues that the global decline of the Left is linked to the waning of the idea of equality that has united citizens in the past and inspired them to engage in collective action.&nbsp; Sand retraces the evolution of this idea in a wide-ranging account that includes the Diggers and Levellers of seventeenth-century England, the French Revolution, the birth of anarchism and Marxism, the decolonial, feminist and civil rights revolts, and the left populism of our time. In piecing together the thinkers and movements that built the Left over centuries, Sand illuminates the global and transnational dynamics which pushed them forward, often picking up the gauntlets their predecessors had laid down. He outlines how they shaped the notion of equality, while also analysing how they were confronted by its material reality, and the lessons that they did - or did not - draw from this.&nbsp; This concise and magisterial history of the Left will be of interest to anyone interested in the idea of equality and the fate of one of the most important movements that has shaped the modern world.

Israel-Palestine: Federation or Apartheid?

History

Middle East

Since the brutal massacre perpetrated by Hamas on 7 October and the subsequent bombing and invasion of Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been thrust back to the centre of the world's attention.&nbsp; How can this deep-rooted conflict, stretching back for more than 75 years, be brought to an end?&nbsp; What kind of political structure might one day enable Israelis and Palestinians to overcome the seemingly interminable cycle of violence and live in peace with one another?&nbsp;&nbsp; For many years, politicians and citizens of different persuasions have called for a two-state solution - two independent states, Israel and Palestine, co-existing side by side.&nbsp; This was Shlomo Sand's view too: a distinguished Israeli historian and political activist on the left, he had long supported the idea of a two-state solution.&nbsp;&nbsp; But as more and more settlements were built in the occupied West Bank and millions of Palestinians were forced to live in a situation of de facto apartheid, deprived of their basic civil rights and political freedoms, he came to the conclusion that the two-state solution had become an empty formula that no one seriously intended to implement.&nbsp; It was in this context that Sand sought to find an alternative way out of the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio.&nbsp; His journey into the dark corners of Zionism's ideological past threw up some surprises.&nbsp; He discovered that some Zionists and other Jewish intellectuals had rejected the idea of an exclusive Jewish state and had supported moves to create a bi-national federation.&nbsp; They believed that only egalitarian integration within the framework of a common state would ensure that Israel could be a safe haven for all of its inhabitants. While the chances of realizing this egalitarian vision may seem remote in the current hostile context, it may well be that a bi-national state in which Israelis and Palestinians are treated as equals is the only realistic solution in the end.

How the work of Israeli writers today reflects the foundation myths of a Jewish state.
The idea of the Jewish nation was conceived before the organization of the Zionist movement in the nineteenth century and continued long after the creation of the state of Israel. In The Words and the Land, post-Zionist Israeli historian Shlomo Sand examines how both Jewish and Israeli intellectuals contributed to this process. One by one, he identifies and calls into question the foundation myths of the Israeli state, beginning with the myth of a people forcibly uprooted, a people-race that began to wander the world in search of a land of asylum. This was a people that would define itself on a biological and “mythological-religious” basis, embodied in words that today feed Israeli political, literary, and historical writing: “exile,” “return,” and “ascent” (Alyah) to the land of its origins.
Since 1948, most intellectuals in Israel have continued to accept this ethno-national image and embrace an exclusive state identity to which only Jewish people can belong. The first challenges to this dominant idea didn't appear in Israel until the 1980s, in the innovative work of the “post-Zionist” historians, who were bent on dismantling the nationalist historical myth and arguing for a state that would belong equally to all its citizens. Analyzing how Israeli intellectuals positioned themselves during the Gulf War and in the new era of communication technologies, Sand extends his analysis globally, looking at the status of intellectuals in all societies.

The Words and the Land: Israeli Intellectuals and the Nationalist Myth (Semiotext(e) / Active Agents)

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Semiotext[e]

The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland

What is a homeland and when does it become a national territory? Why have so many people been willing to die for such places throughout the twentieth century? What is the essence of the Promised Land? Following the acclaimed and controversial The Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand examines the mysterious sacred land that has become the site of the longest-running national struggle of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Invention of the Land of Israel deconstructs the age-old legends surrounding the Holy Land and the prejudices that continue to suffocate it. Sand’s account dissects the concept of “historical right” and tracks the creation of the modern concept of the “Land of Israel” by nineteenth-century Evangelical Protestants and Jewish Zionists. This invention, he argues, not only facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel; it is also threatening the existence of the Jewish state today.

Verso Books

Shlomo Sand was born in 1946, in a displaced person’s camp in Austria, to Jewish parents; the family later migrated to Palestine. As a young man, Sand came to question his Jewish identity, even that of a “secular Jew.” With this meditative and thoughtful mixture of essay and personal recollection, he articulates the problems at the center of modern Jewish identity. How I Stopped Being a Jew discusses the negative effects of the Israeli exploitation of the “chosen people” myth and its “holocaust industry.” Sand criticizes the fact that, in the current context, what “Jewish” means is, above all, not being Arab and reflects on the possibility of a secular, non-exclusive Israeli identity, beyond the legends of Zionism.

How I Stopped Being a Jew

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Verso

Shlomo Sand was born in 1946, in a displaced person’s camp in Austria, to Jewish parents; the family later migrated to Palestine. As a young man, Sand came to question his Jewish identity, even that of a “secular Jew.” With this meditative and thoughtful mixture of essay and personal recollection, he articulates the problems at the center of modern Jewish identity.\nHow I Stopped Being a Jew discusses the negative effects of the Israeli exploitation of the “chosen people” myth and its “holocaust industry.” Sand criticizes the fact that, in the current context, what “Jewish” means is, above all, not being Arab and reflects on the possibility of a secular, non-exclusive Israeli identity, beyond the legends of Zionism.

Historical

The acclaimed and controversial historian turns his critical gaze on the writing of history today On its publication in 2009, Shlomo Sand’s book The Invention of the Jewish People met with a storm of controversy. His demystifying approach to nationalist and Zionist historiography provoked much criticism from other professional historians, as well as praise. The furore gave him a privileged position to consider his academic discipline, which he reflects on here in Twilight of History. Drawing on four decades in the field, Sand takes a wider view and interrogates the study of history, whose origin lay in the need for a national ideology. Over the last few decades, traditional history has begun to fragment, yet only to give rise to a new role for historians as priests of official memory. Working in Israel has sharpened Sand’s perspective, since the role of history as national myth is particularly salient in a country where the Bible is treated as a source of historical fact. He asks such questions as: Is every historical narrative ideologically marked? Do political requirements and state power weigh down inordinately on historical research and teaching? And, in such conditions, can there be a morally neutral and “scientific” truth? Despite his trenchant criticism of academic history, Sand would still like to believe that the past can be understood without myth, and finds reasons for hope in the work of Max Weber and Georges Sorel.

Twilight of History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Charting the decline of the French intellectual, from the Dreyfus Affair to IslamophobiaThe best-selling author of The Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand examines the troublesome figure of the French intellectual. Revered throughout the Francophile world, France’s tradition of public intellectual engagement stems from Voltaire and Zola and runs through Sartre and Foucault to the present day. The intellectual enjoys a status as the ethical lodestar of his nation’s life, but, as Sand shows, the recent history of these esteemed figures shows how often, and how profoundly, they have fallen short of the ideal. Sand examines Sartre and de Beauvoir’s unsettling accommodations during the Nazi occupation and then shows how Muslims have replaced Jews as the nation’s scapegoats for a new generation of public intellectuals, including Michel Houellebecq and Alain Finkielkraut. Possessing an intimate knowledge of the Parisian intellectual milieu, Sand laments the degradation of a literary elite, but questions the value of that class at the best of times. Drawing parallels between the Dreyfus Affair and Charlie Hebdo, while mixing reminiscence with analysis, Sand casts a characteristically candid and mordant gaze upon the intellectual scene of today.

The End of the French Intellectual: From Zola to Houellebecq

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sand, Shlomo. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Sand, Shlomo

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sand, Shlomo. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Brief Global History of the Left

A Brief Global History of the Left

Israel-Palestine: Federation or Apartheid?

Israel-Palestine: Federation or Apartheid?

The Words and the Land: Israeli Intellectuals and the Nationalist Myth (Semiotext(e) / Active Agents)

The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland

How I Stopped Being a Jew

How I Stopped Being a Jew

Twilight of History

The End of the French Intellectual: From Zola to Houellebecq