A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to our Time by Howard M. Sachar

"This is a long volume for a small country.  After four far-ramifying Middle Eastern crises in one generation, however, it may be assumed that the seismic impact of Israel upon the contemporary world is too palpable to require elaboration.  One may even argue that the Jews, with or without statehood, have exerted an uncommonly protean influence upon organized society from ancient to modern times.  Ironically, the theorists of Zionism had anticipated that revived nationhood in the land of Israel finally would lift this unique and burdensome afflatus from the backs of the Jewish people; for, aside from the religionists among them, the Zionists were animated less by a sense of mission than by a search for normalcy.  In the ensuing chapters we shall have opportunity to evaluate the ambivalent results of that quest." - paragraph taken from the prologue