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| The Imaginary Voyage: With Theodor Herzl in Israel | 
 enlarge | Author: Shimon Peres
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy Used: $0.87
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1871355
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st English-language Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.9
ISBN: 1559704683
Dewey Decimal Number: 320.54095694
EAN: 9781559704687
ASIN: 1559704683
Publication Date: June 14, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers! Your purchase benefits world literacy!
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres combines history, memoir, and fiction in an "imaginary voyage" through 20th-century Israel with the 19th-century founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl. "Only the narrow-minded and unimaginative will find this premise off-putting or surprising," Peres explains. "Everyone else has long known that in our country the impossible is a way of life." This make-believe tour includes a brief description of the Holocaust for a man who initially would have disbelieved it, plus vignettes of life in the Jewish nation-state ("I had no idea whether Herzl would appreciate the pleasure of today's Tel Aviv nightlife. I had a hard time picturing him dancing to some disc jockey's rock 'n' roll, or taking part in a rave on one of the converted docks at Jaffa"). Peres also uses Herzl as a tool for projecting some of his own views on contemporary Israeli politics: "[Herzl] sternly disapproved of the role religious parties play in governing Israel today.... I am concerned about the growing schism between the religious and the secular factions in Israel. The former, to be quite honest, have proven themselves far more vindictive than the latter. If we are not careful, this latent conflict could divide Israel and Israeli society, and encourage intolerance and discourage progress." The Imaginary Voyage is a quickly read tale full of charming idiosyncrasies and edgy political observations. --John J. Miller
Product Description
In this moving and often astonishing memoir, Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres undertakes something most unusual: an imaginary voyage with Theodor Herzl, the great Zionist theorist and spiritual father of Israel. Despite the decades that separate them, they visit together places that Herzl knew only as dreams in the desert.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Comparing visions March 15, 2004
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Shimon Peres, Nobel Peace Prize winner and a former prime minister of Israel, finds a way to examine how far Israel has come in a half-century by conducting an imaginary tour of the Holy Land for Theodor Herzl, father of Zionism. While the prose is hardly exotic, Peres does offer some keen and thought-provoking analysis. The book is recommended for readers with an interest in modern Israel.
 Two Visionaries, Different Eras July 30, 1999
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Peres takes Herzl on an imaginary tour through Israel, a century after Herzl's first visit to Palestine. The author makes astute observations about Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and the spectacular changes these and other cities in Israel have undergone throughout the years. Peres evaluates the predictions made by Herzl in his utopian novel, Old-New Land, in light of present-day realities. Of course, some of them were totally off-base, but others are amazingly prescient. And, in discussing the character of the Jewish state and how it ought to deal with its neighbors, Peres quotes extensively from Herzl's writings and the works of other Zionist thinkers (e.g., Ahad Ha'am). Despite the mediocre editing job, there is plenty of keen insight on issues ranging from cultural/religious/ethnic diversity to the water problem in the Middle East that make this book a good read.
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