Over the past hundred years, tourism has evolved into the world's biggest business, and few countries today question the common wisdom that the road to economic development is paved with tourist dollars. Yet questions should be raised, Patricia Goldstone argues in this pathbreaking book on the social and political impacts of tourism. She examines for the first time the close connections between business and politics as government and industry leaders work together to reengineer political trouble spots into tourist destinations in places like Ireland, Turkey, and Cuba. She also probes the...

Aaron Aaronsohn was one of the most extraordinary figures in the early struggle to create a homeland for the Jewish people. Brought to Palestine at age five, as a young man Aaronsohn was a rugged adventurer who became convinced during years of solo explorations that water should govern the region's fate. He compiled both the area's first detailed water maps and a plan for Palestine's national borders that predicted and--in its insistence on partnership between Arabs and Jews--might have prevented the decades of conflict to come.
In World War I, he ran a spy network with his sister, Sarah,...