SIX DAYS OF WAR: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East

Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, by Michael B. Oren

Middle East Explained

This book gives the listener a broad perspective of the present day situation in the Middle East. All the power brokers that are in play in today’s Syrian crisis (2013) were also the participants in 1967. I especially enjoyed learning many of the behind-the-scenes decisions made by the Israelis concerning land acquisitions in the final few days of this very short war. They played a juggling match between being too aggressive and risking UN intervention and being too passive and blowing an opportunity to acquire critical regions essential to their future defensibility. The resulting map of the region is the Middle East we have in place today. This book will help anyone interested in the way the world works understand why there was such an outcry when the current US President announced that he thought that Israel should return to the pre-1967 borders as a prerequisite to serious peace negotiations.

Robert Whitfield (otherwise known as Simon Vance) is excellent as always in the narration for this history. His pronunciation of the foreign place names seems natural and correct. He has a pleasant mildly-British accent that is easy on my ears.