How did a community of a few thousand Jewish refugees become, in little over a century, a modern nation-state and homeland of half the world's Jews? Has modern Israel fulfilled the Zionist vision of becoming "a nation like other nations, " or is it still, in Biblical terns, "a people that dwells alone"?

Alan Dowty distils over half a century of study as an inside/outside analyst of Israel in tracing this remarkable story. It begins in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, when Jews fleeing Russian persecution established a renewed Jewish presence in their historic homeland. It continues through harsh struggle and in deep-rooted conflict with another people that sees Israel/Palestine equally as their homeland. Immensely successful by most standards, Israel today remains a center of contention and is still torn between its hard-earned role as a "normal" nation and the call of its particularistic, and unique, Jewish history.