The making of an alliance: the origins and development of the US–Israel relationship

Abstract

echoes in major respects the accounts of other prominent historians. He traces in meticulous (and often excruciating) detail the path taken by the conflict, from its beginnings in the Galilee to its climax in Judea to its close in perhaps the most ‘celebrated’ single event of the fighting, the Roman siege of the mountain fortress of Masada. Nor does Rogers’ account depart noticeably in major respects from these other accounts in regard to the outcome of the revolt, particularly insofar as concerns the replacement of a ‘temple-centric’ Judaism by a ‘text-centric’ Judaism. He does part company with his peers, however, when it comes to speculating about the inevitability of the revolt’s course and consequences. Many of his colleagues strongly imply, if they do not say so explicitly, that the Jewish rebels had no chance of victory against the Roman Empire, that their cause was doomed from the very start. Rogers contends, to the contrary, that the rebels might well have achieved a measure of success in the revolt – in the form of enhanced autonomy for Judea, though probably not genuine independence from Rome – had they been better at strategy, tactics and logistics. The rebels, he correctly observes, never had a coherent and effective plan for confronting the Roman Empire, whilst the empire surely did have such a plan for confronting them. Regardless of whether one agrees with what is certain to be a controversial view, Rogers’ account of the first (but not the last) cataclysmic Roman–Jewish war offers superb insight into a fateful conflict, not only for Romans and Jews but also for the entire world. His book is most heartily recommended to anyone, scholar and layperson alike, who has an interest in the troubled relationship between the Roman Empire and the Jewish people.