He has recorded a compelling, uniquely comprehensive and enlightening historical analysis of the inherently destabilising dynamic of Zionism. Of particular note are his detailed chapters nine and 13.

In chapter nine, he documents the constellation of Jewish factors that came together in the 19th century which assured Zionist success the spread of Jewish intellectuals and professionals across major cities in Europe; Jewish population growth to 16.7 million in 1939 which could root a nationalist movement; business acumen and ownership of major banks and a strong media presence; growth of interchange with other Jewish leaders contributing to a sense of community — important considering that Jews had not previously formed a sense of nation according to Alam; and as European nationalism grew, Jews were affected by the idea though they had no majority presence in any one state which could be claimed by them.

Historical anti-Semitism prodded the Jewish elites toward formulation of the Zionist project even as Jews were moving out of the ghettos of a liberalised Europe. Given their distribution throughout Europe and without a territorial base of their own, the Zionists sought and captured the needed 'mother' country to implement their colonial settler state in Palestine. They found support for this from the UK initially and then the US with periodic support by other countries such as France.

In chapter 13, he recounts the growth of Christian Zionism which underpins the Zionist project in Palestine. He takes the reader through the Protestant Reformation from which several new Protestant evangelical churches emerged and restored the notions of Jews as God's chosen people and the Covenant promising Palestine to the Jews. These notions are crucial to the evangelical belief in end times.

Alam's discussion on the Israel lobby in the US is also worthy of special note. He analyses the way in which Zionist acumen made the lobby so powerful. This becomes particularly clear when the author expertly demonstrates that Israel was not a strategic asset to the US or earlier to the UK.

However, by its well-known tactic of instigating Arab hostility to the US for its support of Israel, Israel increasingly developed the image of a strategic asset by offering to check its created Arab hostility to American interests.

It is Israel's need to create situations to keep the US on the hook that makes it a destabilising factor in the area. Israel's defeat of Arab nationalist regimes in the 1967 war clinched its claim to be a strategic asset as those regimes had developed a pragmatic relation with the former USSR.

The lobby from that point on becomes almost invincible in its ability to co-shape US policy in the Middle East. As such, Alam demonstrates effectively that in spite of wreaking havoc in the area, Israel is shielded from international sanctions by its engineered exceptionalism buttressed and reinforced by the astonishing array of politically powerful institutions and organisations that Zionists have formed in the US.

The author spells out the pillars of that exceptionalism which are riveted into the public mind and serve as the automatic armour against criticism and punitive measures the biblical mythology of Jewish chosenness granting Jews the 'divine right' to Palestine and thereby invalidating Palestinian territorial rights; Israeli achievements in garnering western commitment to creating and maintaining a Jewish state as well as demonstrable Israeli power and technology; and the constant invocation of eternal Jewish victimisation to silence criticism.

Much of the book is dedicated to how the Zionists have achieved a unique status for Israel. In this, Alam has generally exceeded previous studies.

There are, however, problematic sections in the book. Although they are not the major thrust of the book, nonetheless they are important for thought about future developments in the area.

Alam employs a concept that only a select few understand in the West. It is Islamicate. This concept originated with Marshall Hodgson, a University of Chicago historian who defined it as something that 'would refer not directly to the religion, Islam, itself, but to the social and cultural complex historically associated with Islam and the Muslims, both among Muslims themselves and even when found among non-Muslims.'

Alam prefers Islamicate to Islamic world since there is no pure Islamic or other culture in the world after generations of cultural co-mingling. He tends to see Israel as an attack on the Islamicate set in motion by western support for its statehood against the indigenous people. But he predicts that the Islamicate will respond to this Israeli/US assault and will recover 'its dignity, its autonomy and power ... on the strength of Islamic ideas.'

On the way to his predicted restored Islamicate, he takes us through the failure of Arab nationalism to defeat Israel and its US backer. He blames the failure on two things.

First, he insists the Arab nationalists turned their backs on their Islamic roots and tried to build a new ethnic identity drawn primarily from western secular thought, thereby apparently weakening the Islamicate and forfeiting membership in it.

This seems to contradict the definition of Islamicate. If cultures and ideas have co-mingled over time, Arabs who embraced Arab nationalism did not necessarily cease their embrace of values shared by the Islamicate. Alam's juxtaposing of Arab and Islamicate seems to belie a more rigid definition of the Islamicate, one that makes Islam, the religion, the litmus test rather than cultural values emanating there from. It seems Arabs are not part of the Islamicate if they embrace secular ideas but could be if they adopt Islamist ideologies.

Second, Alam states correctly that the Arab nationalists were basically petit bourgeoisie and committed to their separate states. As such, when confronting Israel, they did so through their inferior state militaries rather than by guerrilla war so successfully used in Vietnam and Algeria. But indeed, there were attempts at guerrilla war against Israel.

Most notable was the organised Palestinian Fedayeen resistance in the 1960s. It did not receive the support of the Arab States.

Islamic-based Hezbollah, Hamas and the Taliban employ guerrilla tactics and have been somewhat successful, but their ability to do so stems primarily from the fact that they are fighting on their national territory.

My argument with Alam is that he assumes the present Islamist movements will create 'more integrated structures across the Islamicate' and will confront and replace these failed and fragmented regimes with their special interest groups leading ultimately to a restored Islamicate.

It is not at all clear to this reviewer that this will be the outcome. Changed regimes may not differ in promoting interests of the separate states and/or integrating a significant secular content in their political systems over and above the content of an imagined Islamicate. After all, they too live in a globalised world.

To give Alam his due, however, he draws his conclusion based on the movements he sees before him today, but also, understandably, from a personal preference for some semblance of a restored and unified Islamicate.

There are some errors in the book. Two stand out 1) the author writes 'All Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire outside Palestine were promised to the Arabs.' Palestine was included in the 1915 McMahon/Hussein agreements which led to Arab support of Britain against the Turks and Germans. The British then chose to neglect their commitment regarding Palestine. Alam did not cover these agreements in his book.

And 2) he notes, quoting Benny Morris, 'the British administration in Palestine “went out of its way to promote Arab political frameworks parallel to Zionist institutions”.' The British did create Arab institutions. However, as recent archival records indicate, Arab (Palestinian) institutions intentionally had no power.

Herbert Samuel, British high commissioner in Palestine (1915-1920) was a Zionist. He worked closely with the Zionist Commission in Palestine, the National Council for Jews in Palestine and the Jewish Constituent Assembly (Va'ad Leumi) precursor of the Israeli Knesset.

Samuel blocked every effort by the majority Palestinians to gain authoritative representation, while simultaneously granting the Zionist minority considerable power. (Sahar Huneida, A Broken Trust Herbert Samuel, Zionism and the Palestinians). In fact he laid the foundations of the future state of Israel.

In spite of minor lapses, Alam's book is a brilliant exposition of the dazzling success of Zionism and its ability to sustain Israeli exceptionalism.

The reviewer is professor emerita of sociology, Simmons College, Boston.