This history of the foundational war in the Arab-Israeli conflict is groundbreaking, objective, and deeply revisionist. This book provides an account of the military engagements and also focuses on the war's political dimensions. It stresses on the jihadi character of the two-stage Arab assault on the Jewish community in Palestine.

Morris looks both at high politics and general staff decision-making processes and at the nitty-gritty of combat in the successive battles that resulted in the emergence of the State of Israel and the humiliation of the Arab world, a humiliation that underlines the continued Arab antagonism toward Israel.