Fredrik Meiton

Altneuland, bokstavligen »gammelnyland«, handlar om hur Friedrich Löwenberg, en ung judisk intellektuell, tröttnar på Europa och ger sig ut på en lång resa i sällskap med Kingscourt. När de efter en lång tid borta stannar till i Palestina märker de hur Den nya samhället liknar det som de drömt om. Ett modernt och jämställt samhälle, med kollektivt ägande av marken och uppmuntran av individuella initiativ. Tanken på ett modernt och rättvist Israel där judar kunde leva i harmoni med andra framvisar en utopisk version av det samhälle som författaren ville inspirera till. Här föreligger boken för första gången i svensk översättning av Per G Jonsson, med en inledning av forskaren Fredrik Meiton.Theodor Herzl föddes 1860 i Budapest och dog 44 år gammal i Öster­rike 1904. Han verkade som journalist och grundade den moderna sionistiska rörelsen. Han främsta verk är Judestaten (1896) och roman­en Altneuland (1902). Här före­ligger den senare i sin första svenska översättning.

Electricity is an integral part of everyday life—so integral that we rarely think of it as political. In Electrical Palestine, Fredrik Meiton illustrates how political power, just like electrical power, moves through physical materials whose properties govern its flow. At the dawn of the Arab-Israeli conflict, both kinds of power were circulated through the electric grid that was built by the Zionist engineer Pinhas Rutenberg in the period of British rule from 1917 to 1948. Drawing on new sources in Arabic, Hebrew, and several European languages, Electrical Palestine charts a story of rapid and uneven development that was greatly influenced by the electric grid and set the stage for the conflict between Arabs and Jews. Electrification, Meiton shows, was a critical element of Zionist state building. The outcome in 1948, therefore, of Jewish statehood and Palestinian statelessness was the result of a logic that was profoundly conditioned by the power system, a logic that has continued to shape the area until today.

Electricity is an integral part of everyday life—so integral that we rarely think of it as political. In Electrical Palestine, Fredrik Meiton illustrates how political power, just like electrical power, moves through physical materials whose properties govern its flow. At the dawn of the Arab-Israeli conflict, both kinds of power were circulated through the electric grid that was built by the Zionist engineer Pinhas Rutenberg in the period of British rule from 1917 to 1948. Drawing on new sources in Arabic, Hebrew, and several European languages, Electrical Palestine charts a story of rapid and uneven development that was greatly influenced by the electric grid and set the stage for the conflict between Arabs and Jews. Electrification, Meiton shows, was a critical element of Zionist state building. The outcome in 1948, therefore, of Jewish statehood and Palestinian statelessness was the result of a logic that was profoundly conditioned by the power system, a logic that has continued to shape the area until today.