Jonathan Mirsky
Peace Powwow
Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David
By Lawrence Wright
Oneworld 345pp £20 order from our bookshop
With the Middle East convulsed by immolations, beheadings, hangings and bombings, it is good to know that what happened for thirteen days in late 1978 at Camp David, the presidential summer retreat near Washington, DC, ensured a big thing: the lasting peace between Israel and Egypt. It is also good to be reminded of the characteristics of the three national leaders who met there, President Jimmy Carter, Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt. It was an unusual event in international diplomacy: negotiations between states are typically conducted by foreign ministers.
Carter was a true believer in the words of the Bible and the holy significance of the land of Israel. The Carters read the Bible to each other – in Spanish – at bedtime. Begin was a veteran terrorist whose campaign of bombings and assassinations during the British Mandate in
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Within hours, the news spread. A grimy gang of desperadoes had been captured just in time to stop them setting out on an assassination plot of shocking audacity.'
@katheder on the Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/butchers-knives-treason-and-plot
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger