I am deeply grateful to the following people: my late teachers at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem – Yehoshua Arieli, Jacob L. Talmon, Natan Rotenstreich, Shemuel Eisenstadt, Jacob Katz, and Yehoshua Prawer. I was inspired to undertake my academic work by Gershom Scholem, who, in his last lecture, which I was privileged to attend, called for new horizons of research to be opened up. I hope I found my way.

I wish to thank the editors of the Hebrew edition: Avi Sagi, Yedidia Stern, and Dror Yinon. My gratitude is also due to Anita Shapira, who was the director of the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies, which gave me a fellowship to write this book.

My thanks are due to my colleagues Aviezer Ravitzky, Sasson Somekh, Steve Ascheim, Haviva Pedaya, Irad Malkin, Paul Mendes-Flohr, Yaakov Ariel, and Malachi Hacohen and to my friends Michael Feige, Moriel Ram, Ari Barell, Yiftah Gavish, Avi Katzman, and “Avraham” from Berkeley. I likewise owe a debt of gratitude to the writers Haim Guri, A. B. Yehoshua, Haim Beer, and the late Aharon Amir.

The book was written at the Jerusalem Van Leer Institute, the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, I met the wonderful colleagues and friends Martin Jay, Robert Alter, and Paul Hamburg.

Special thanks are due to my devoted translator David Maisel, who for the last quarter century has translated my books into English.

Lastly, I am deeply indebted to Lewis Bateman, my editor at Cambridge University Press, who directed the team, which included Anne Lovering Rounds and Bindu Vinod. After a long intellectual odyssey, this group finally brought the ship safely into port.