Reviews for Best for Britain?: The Politics and Legacy of Gordon Brown

The average rating for Best for Britain?: The Politics and Legacy of Gordon Brown based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2021-01-28 00:00:00 Bryan Wick Wow. What an insane book. I feel like I'm not worthy of writing a review for a book that has impacted my own life in such a way. There's something very inspirational about this idea, that this guy could look around, realize there's a problem, write down a very practical solution and then a few years later, it more or less happens. There's this claim that without the Holocaust, Israel wouldn't have happened. Reading this book, I see how that could be seen as true. Hertzl spends a while trying to realize how could he make people immigrate when, after the Holocaust, that was less of a question. My own grandparents were desperately waiting for a few years to leave their home country after the Holocaust. And it's honestly insane to me that this book was written before the Holocaust because it seems to predict it. I had to check the dates at least twice because it feels like he just knew it would happen, that it wasn't a surprise at all. I feel like this book should be read in Israeli high schools, I don't understand how I could have graduated without reading it, despite how much we studied about Zionism. Reading it makes it clear how he perceived this country, what he felt was important. My favorite part of this book was seeing his predictions versus the reality now. Like how Herzl thought we need a professional army. I am quite pro the mandatory army so it was unfortunate for me to discover that that wasn't the original intention. The bit where he talks about Hebrew and says no one can order a railway ticket in Hebrew, that it's impossible for the country to speak Hebrew is just exciting to read. Herzl thought it is more viable that Israelis would speak all of their original languages than learn Hebrew. Just picturing that version of our country is remarkable, as well as the fact that we all speak Hebrew now. I just can't get over how impossible that seems. Also, I loved how sad he seemed about us not having a monarch. My favorite thing to do when I meet national religious folks is to remind them that, no matter how much they wish to describe Israel as this ultra-religious miracle, the country was built by secular folks. It's nice that within this book, he mentions how important it is that the country be nonreligious and even talks about people from other religions living here. I've never heard of the 7 hour work week, it's incredible how well thought this book is. Herzl didn't just go, "we need a country". He went so deep into figuring out, even to the point of irrelevancy. I think it's important people read this book because it shows how Israel isn't a colonialist idea, that this idea for Israel in no way is land-grabbing. We can't be compared to the British Empire. I think I'll wrap this up here but yeah, definitely recommend to everyone who cares the slightest bit about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What I'm Taking with Me - Hertzl's family was such a mess, such a tragic story and it's nice that his heritage exists positively. - Hertzl points out that the antisemitism is one of the things that made Jews stick together. Had there not been antisemitism, Jews would have assimilated by now. - I can't stop thinking about how Hertzl literally solved the antisemitism problem. Like yeah, it would have been better if people stop being racist towards minorities but this idea that Jews deserve a place of their own is such a clean solution. Kind of.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-01-19 00:00:00 Judith B Reeves Herzl wrote an incredibly idealistic pamphlet, complete with comprehensive details of how he imagined the Jewish homeland would work and how the Jews of Europe would get there. It seemed impossible. But then it happened.