stephen  d. leece

At the risk of reluctantly downplaying Mr. Laffin’s achievement with this book it has many flaws, which the publisher tries to account for in an introduction.

The most obvious flaw is 25 years of Israeli military history being crammed into a slender volume of 40 pages, including photos and diagrams.

Nevertheless, Laffin gives a reasonable overview of the main Arab-Israeli Wars within these dates, and covers some of the minor conflicts as well, and the equipment used and uniforms worn by the various services that make up the IDF.

The most obvious flaw regrettably is that without a parallel Arab account, which would be difficult, if not impossible to obtain, the whole book feels one-sided.

However this is still worth a read for anyone seeking some information on the culture, practices and thinking of the IDF between the given dates.