Readers will be left frustrated by the lack of psychological insight in this detailed but unsatisfying biography of controversial Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. The book's strength is in its early pages, where the authors detail Sharon's youth. He was born in 1928 to a strongly individualist father who had moved to Palestine from the Soviet Union. The authors (Anita Miller is a literary scholar, Jordan Miller a poet and playwright, Zetouni a director of Olive Production and a contributing editor to Chicago Life
magazine) also lay out clearly Sharon's early rise through the Israeli army—and his developing reputation as a loose cannon. The book competently describes the notorious 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese Christian troops, for which an Israeli commission later found Sharon indirectly responsible. But three-quarters of the book is devoted to the past decade—the rise and fall of the Oslo peace process and the second Palestinian intifada—and Sharon's role in these events. There are few revelations here, and little attempt is made to probe Sharon's motivations, for example the possible effects of the personal tragedies he's suffered—the early deaths of his first wife and his first-born son. A figure as important and complex as Sharon deserves a more sophisticated treatment. Photos not seen by PW. (Aug.)
Forecast:Despite its flaws, many trying to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will turn to this, which the publisher says is the first English-language biography of Sharon.
