Volume 51, Number 4 · March 11, 2004
Seeds of Revolution
By Avishai Margalit, Ian Buruma
Theodor Herzl, founding father of the Zionist movement, was not a gifted novelist. Nevertheless, his novel, Altneuland (Old-New Land), is one of the most remarkable books of the twentieth century. Although Herzl finished it in 1902, the visionary ideas expressed in this 'fairy tale,' as he called it, belonged firmly in the century before. Altneuland is a blueprint of the perfect Jewish state, a technocratic utopia, a socialist dream with all the advantages of capitalism, an idealistic colonial enterprise, a model of pure reason, a 'light unto the nations.' It also helps to explain the extremism of some of those who rebel against the dominance of what is widely regarded as the arrogant West.
Feature, 3330 words
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