International praise for Edge Hill historian

The Zionist Masquerade, a book on Britain and the origins of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict by Dr James Renton, Senior Lecturer in History, has received high praise in the United States.  

A review in the widely respected journal of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, the International Journal of Middle East Studies, says ‘Renton's excellent new book clearly and concisely explodes many myths surrounding the Balfour Declaration of 1917.' The review refers to his ‘brilliant analysis', and praises Dr Renton for ‘putting scholarship ahead of partisanship, an all too rare achievement in the all too tortured historiography of the modern Middle East.'

The book was longlisted for the prestigious 2009 Longman/History Today Book of the Year Prize, and was described by a reviewer in The Middle East Journal (Washington D.C.) as a ‘fine piece of strongly evidence-based scholarship that ... will do much to provoke thought about British policies, the potency of propaganda, and the origins of the state of Israel.'