Israel six decades after its founding remains a nation in thrall to an original martial impulse. Born of idealism under David Ben Gurion & his proteges Dayan Sharon & Peres Israel came to prioritize security at all costs & to seize land & water whenever opportunity arose. The security state erected around the nation is the most efficient ruthless intelligent & skilful in the region. & it is very little understood. Patrick Tyler believes that the way to understand it is to understand the men & women who have created sustained & directed it. Less an anatomy of institutions & administrations than a searching biographical study of the outsize personalities who headed its operations & in consequence steered Israels course since its foundation this book is a landmark in the revelation of the inner workings of the Israeli nation-state.