Cairo to Damascus

This rare book by John Roy Carlson gives an unconventional and detailed account of the war for Israel's independence. Carlson daringly goes undercover on all sides, and therefore provides a unique and captivating account of events. I left my country quite as uninformed, I am afraid, as are most Americans with respect to other peoples and other shores. But everywhere I went I sought to touch reality—always honestly, and always at first hand. Everywhere I clung close to the smells, the flora and fauna of native existence. In that spirit I have written of the Arabs among whom I lived. I found much good and much evil—evil acquired through a feudal order that, in my opinion, remains the Arab’s greatest enemy and his greatest barrier to emergence from the dark ages. I am grateful for Arab hospitality and the kindness I was shown, but a reporter, like a physician, must not remain blind to the ills plaguing his subject.