pepperthephoenix's Reviews (821)

While the book was entertaining and it helped me understand Begin's Israel and Sadat's Egypt better than before, I am a little disappointed in the book. Mr. Wright spends more time providing background information then he does discussing the actual talks. I was hoping to have a detailed analysis of the talks and the key actors and how they interacted with each other and how this interaction lead to the peace accords. Instead we end up learning more about Begin's time with the Irgun then the negotiation process.

It is true that Mr. Wright mentions the difficulty in achieving peace and he talks a little about the three leaders thought process and what they were all expecting, but it seems rather superficial to me. It basically ends up being a story about Jimmy Carter running to Sadat who won't give in on the Sinai Settlements and to Begin who doesn't understand why Israel has to give up territory she won in war. If Egypt did not want to lose the peninsula then they shouldn't have attacked Israel in the first place. The same thing with the Palestinians.

Personally I would have lot a more in depth study into the actually discussions that occurred and how men like Weizmann and Dayan affected the negotiations.

The background information was useful as it helped understand the countries and the men, but Mr. Wright's book makes the Camp David Accords sound like nothing more than a lot of time spent doing nothing with moments of shouting and crying.

Overall this is a good introductory book, but it was lacking the depth I was expecting.