O Jerusalem!

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972. Book Club Edition. Hardcover. good/fair. 670 pages, illus., endpaper maps, appendix, chapter notes, bibliography, index, sticker ins fr flylf, DJ soiled & creased: small tears. Sticker residue on front DJ. This book recounts, moment by moment, the process that gave birth to the state of Israel. Collins & Lapierre weave a tapestry of shattered hopes, valor & fierce pride as the Arabs, Jews & British collide in their fight for control of Jerusalem. O Jerusalem! meticulously recreates this historic struggle. It penetrates the battle from the inside, exploring each party's interests, intentions & concessions as the city of their dreams teeters on the brink of destruction. From the Jewish fighters & their heroic commanders to the charismatic Arab chieftain whose death in battle doomed his cause but inspired a generation of Palestinians, O Jerusalem! tells the 3-dimensional story of this high-stakes, emotional conflict. Larry Collins, born John Lawrence Collins Jr., (September 14, 1929, Hartford, Connecticut - June 20, 2005, Fréjus, France), was an American writer.He graduated from Yale as a BA in 1951. He was conscripted into the US Army. While serving in the public affairs office of the Allied Headquarters in Paris, from 1953 to 1955, he met Dominique Lapierre with whom he would write several best-sellers over 43 years. He took up journalism and joined the Paris bureau of United Press International in 1956, and became the news editor in Rome in the following year, and later the Mideast bureau chief in Beirut. In 1959, he joined Newsweek as Middle East editor, based in New York City. He became the Paris bureau chief in 1961, where he would work until 1964.In 1965, Collins and Dominique Lapierre published their first joint work, Is Paris Burning?, a tale of Nazi occupation of the French capital during World War II and Hitler's plans to destroy Paris should it fall into the hands of the Allies. The book was an instant success. In 1967, they co-authored Or I'll Dress you in Mourning about the Spanish bullfighter Manuel Benítez El Cordobés. In 1972, after five years' research and interviews, they published O Jerusalem! about the birth of Israel in 1948, turned into a movie by Elie Chouraqui. In 1975, they published Freedom at Midnight, a story of the Indian Independence in 1947, and the subsequent assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. It is said they spent $300,000 researching and still emerged wealthy.The duo published their first fictional work, The Fifth Horseman, in 1981. It describes a terrorist attack on New York masterminded by Libya's Colonel Gaddafi. The book had such a shocking effect that the French President canceled the sale of nuclear reactors to Libya, even though it was meant for peaceful purposes.In 1985, Collins authored Fall From Grace (without Lapierre) about a woman agent sent into occupied France who realizes she may be betrayed by her British masters if necessary. He also wrote Maze: A Novel (1989), Black Eagles (1992), Le Jour Du Miracle: D-Day Paris (1994) and Tomorrow Belongs To Us (1998). Shortly before his death, he collaborated with Lapierre on Is New York Burning? (2005), a novel mixing fictional characters and real-life figures that speculates about a terrorist attack on New York City.Dominique Lapierre (born 30 July 1931 in Châtelaillon, Charente-Maritime, France) is a French author. One day he met a young American corporal, Larry Collins, a Yale graduate and draftee. They became friends instantly. Collins became the godfather of the Lapierres' first child, Alexandra. On several occasions, Collins and Lapierre met while on assignment. In spite of their friendship they had to compete with each other for stories. But they decided to join forces to tell a big story which would appeal to both French and anglophone audiences. Their first bestseller Is Paris Burning? sold close to ten million copies in thirty languages. In this book they mixed the modern technique of investigation journalism with the classical methods of historical research.