**New Introduction by Jacques Kornberg** Old New Land forever altered the face of the Middle East. The book was a nineteenth-century utopian blueprint for a modern state of Israel. There were Jewish settlers in Palestine, and Zionist ideas had existed in Eastern Europe before Herzl, but Herzl made Zionism into a cultural and political movement acceptable to Western governments and intellectuals. His prophecy at the end of this book became reality: "If you will it, it is not a fable." The author, founder of the Zionist movement, considered this utopian story his best literary work: an expression of his art, with a political message.
His biographer, Amos Elon, placed Old New Land "in the mainstream of fin-de-siecle art. Its pursuit of arcadian bliss within a mystic community and its haunted preoccupation with dreams recall Gustav Mahler's music."
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Typographical Errors Make Reading Difficult:
While the content of Old New Land (Altneuland) gives a fascinating look into Hertzl's ideals for the development of a Jewish homeland, the Filiquarian edition makes reading continuity very difficult due to the tremendous amount of typographical errors. Often the typo does not interfere with the content of the text - modem for modern, or random periods throughout - but there are cases where the characters' statements are incomprehensible due to the error. Filiquarian Publishing, LLC offers no contact... more info
Comments from New York Review of Books:
"Altneuland (Old New Land) is one of the most remarkable books
of the twentieth century. . . . Altneuland is a blueprint of the perfect
Jewish state, a technocratic utopia, a socialist dream with all the
advantages of capitalism, an idealistic colonial enterprise, a model
of pure reason, a `light unto the nations.' It also helps to explain
the extremism of some of those who rebel against the dominance
of what is widely regarded as the arrogant West.
"By the 1920s,... more info
