Review
“Engaging and insightful… Crossing Mandelbaum Gate is a compelling corrective that can force even reluctant readers to look at the Middle East anew…. A powerful and unflinching book.”—James Gibney, The American Scholar
“Acute and engaging… Bird puts me somewhat in mind of Edward Said’s memoir, Out of Place…. Bird devotes the last third of his text to a reconstruction of his Austrian Jewish wife’s family history during and after the Shoah. His intention here is as admirable as it is plain, and these pages contain some stirring and even uplifting material about human survival. But this serves only to make his genuine evenhandedness more poignant.”—Christopher Hitchens, The Atlantic
About the Author
Kai Bird is the coauthor with Martin J. Sherwin of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, which was the inspiration for the film Oppenheimer, winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture. His other books include The Chairman: John J. McCloy, the Making of the American Establishment, The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy & William Bundy, Brothers in Arms, and The Outlier. Bird is the winner of the 2024 BIO Award for his contributions to the art and craft of biography. His many other honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, and the Rockefeller Foundation. A contributing editor of The Nation, he lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, with his wife and son.
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