Unsettled States, Disputed Lands: Britain and Ireland, France and Algeria, Israel and the West Bank-Gaza (The Wilder House Series in Politics, History and Culture)
Lustick is a distinguished professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has published several works on Israel. In this significant scholarly book, he expands his analysis of Israel to include the French colonial experience in Algeria and the British experience in Ireland. Using these three case studies, Lustick formulates a theory of state expansion and contraction that moves beyond the ideas of states being fixed in their borders and expanding through imperial conquest, or contracting through a cost-benefit calculation of the burdens of imperial control. He argues instead that there are stages of expansion and contraction that move across critical thresholds, which have greater or lesser impact on the regimes or states, institutions, values, and elites. Lustick assesses Ireland, Algeria, and Palestine in terms of this theory, providing a most informative analysis. His work will be of significant value to students of comparative politics. Highly recommended for academic history and political science collections.- Richard B. Finnegan, Stonehill Coll., North Easton, Mass.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.