‘The most complete and detailed account of the British and Zionists during the era of the mandate...All in all, a masterpiece.’ Wm Roger Louis, Editor in Chief of The Oxford History of the British Empire

‘Norman Rose’s eloquent , comprehensive, and even-handed book says it all, from Palestine in the late 19th century to Gaza right now...(his) typically vivid phrases resound in his truly excellent book.’  Jonathan Mirsky, The Spectator, 11 March 2009

‘Rose’s account provides an admirably concise narrative of events from the arrival of  Sir Herbert Samuel as the first High Commissioner in July 1920 to the departure of Sir Alan Cunningham as the last...Rose’s account vividly records the experiences of people embroiled in problems of governance and territorial rights which are still proving intractable 60 years later.’ Nick Rennison, Sunday Times, 22 March 2009

‘Norman Rose pulls together witnesses, official and unofficial, to the battering relations between Jews who were looking for Zion and the British who were trying to keep order in Palestine...Rose has written something close to a definitive version of how the British and Jews engaged in their dialogue of the deaf...if you want to know all the facts and their nuances and complications, Norman Rose has supplied them. And any new context for thinking about Palestine, that murderous stalemate, is a kind of intellectual miracle nowadays.’ Michael Pye, Scotland on Sunday, 4 April 2009

‘A fascinating book, but not one for the optimists.’ Stephen Halliday, Sunday Telegraph, 2 April 2009

‘Norman Rose, of the Hebrew University, charts in meticulous detail the last bloody years of the Palestine Mandate. He neither conceals nor excuses the the excesses of the Irgun and the Stern Gang, but carefully places them in the wider contexts in which they must be seen ...Professor Rose’s book is a work of scholarship.’ Geoffrey Alderman, Jewish Chronicle, 16 April 2009

‘Norman Rose, in his lively recounting of that period of history...with telling comments from the major players of the day - Jewish, Arab, British, American - extracts from hitherto unpublished  correspondence and archival material...Norman Rose, who holds the chair in international relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has written a scholarly book...But it is no dry academic account, as the incidents and comments quoted illustrate.’ Hyam Corney, Jerusalem Post, 28 June 2009

‘These events are judiciously related by Norman Rose, a Professor of History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He makes excellent use of contemporary sources to give a generally dispassionate account, which is sometimes all the more hair-raising for that, whether he is describing the blatent anti-semitism of some British officials...or the behaviour of Zionist ultras who sent letter bombs to British politicians and planned to infect the London water supply with cholera.’ Geoffrey Wheatcroft, London Review of Books, 6 August 2009

‘Rose presents less familiar viewpoints from private letters and diaries, and he is a lucid, humane and fair-minded guide to a hugely contentious history...His account of Zionist terrorism, and British attempts - led by Field Marshall Montgomery - to crush it, is unimpeachably judicious.’ Professor Charles Townshend, Times Higher Educational Supplement, 27 August 2009

‘Rose, a distinguished Israeli historian, writes objective, hard-hitting history...He gives a powerful, detailed and meticulously documented account of that violence, shaming to both the contending parties.’ Sir Martin Gilbert, Standpoint, 4 October 2009

‘Rose’s book is, to a considerable degree, a tripartite indictment, highlighting the cruelties and the ineptitude displayed not only by the Arabs, but also by the Jewish Zionist movement and the British mandatory authorities in Palestine...Rose’s account of those three or four tortured years in the momentous history of the Middle East is both accessible and authoritative. It is not entirely sombre - among its smaller gems are the revelations of minor but significant roles in support of the Zionist cause played by Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra.’ Gerald Jacobs, Tablet, 13 may 2009

‘Norman Rose’s excellent new history of the Mandate of Palestine offers a detailed account of the final years of British rule...Rose’s history should be read by anyone interested in the history of Palestine, as well as anyone who wishes to understand how not to wage a successful counter-insurgency.’ Calder Walton, Times Literary Supplement, 26 November 2009

Among Best Books of the Year:
                                                 ‘Norman Rose’s A Senseless Squalid War (Bodley Head) is the best account yet of the end of the British Mandate.’ Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard, 26 November 2009