"This is an excellent work on the East European origins of modern Jewish nationalism. It is fast becoming a classic of modern Jewish historiography."--Hillel J. Kieval, University of Washington"A major event....Its peculiar virtue is rather as a synthesis, a considered statement by a humane and charitable historian. Such a work has been badly needed for some time....Vital's style, a blend of moderation and pungency, should guarantee this book a wide popular as well as academic readership."--Midstream"Provide[s] the best available synthesis of the ideas and events which flowed together into the formal creation of the Zionist Organization in 1897."--Journal of Modern History"A beautifully written and fact-filled history of the emergence of Political Zionism up to the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897."--The Jewish Spectator"Reading [this volume], we can actually see the Jewish situation in the emancipatory era....At last a major writer has done justice to a major topic, and the work shines like a diamond in a heap of stones."--American Historical Review