The literature on the Six-Day War in June 1967 is extensive, and it is difficult to believe that much is left to tell about the Israeli side of the conflict beyond Michael Oren's Six Days of War (2003), but Shalom (senior researcher, Ben-Gurion Research Institute, Ben-Gurion Univ.) provides a brief, well-crafted account of the immediate time period leading to the ... Read morewar with emphasis on Israeli-US diplomatic manoeuvring. He does not break new ground in archival study as most of the sources are accessible records, but he does provide a solid, readable account. He emphasizes Syria's role as the primary instigator that drew Egypt into the fray. One of the book's strong contributions is the treatment of individual Israeli and American players in the drama; Israeli premier diplomat Abba Eban emerges as the wrong man to have attempted to manage US response in this crisis. Although the book provides extensive historical context for the crises, when it gets to the immediate outbreak of the war, the volume curiously ends abruptly. The reader is left hanging at the point where the story of US-Israeli diplomatic actions had really just begun. Recommended.
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