I would like to thank my exceptionally wise and insightful editors, Iain MacGregor at Simon & Schuster in London and Jennifer Barth at HarperCollins in New York, for everything they have done for this book. Thanks also to the excellent teams at both publishers, including Harriet Dobson, Jo Edgecombe, Mathew Johnson, Martin Lubikowski, Humphrey Price, and Sue Stephens at Simon & Schuster, and Nikki Baldauf, Leah Carlson-Stanisic, Gregg Kulick, Renata Marchione, Erin Wicks, and Martin Wilson at HarperCollins. I would also like to thank my brilliant agents, Natasha Fairweather and Yasmin McDonald, and everyone at United Agents, for all their help.
Thanks to the excellent staff at a number of archives and libraries, many of whom have been of immense help in identifying and tracking down material. These include, in the United States, the National Archives at Archives II in College Park, Maryland, especially Connie Beach who retrieved a file for me in record time which I would otherwise have missed; the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton, New Jersey; the Library of Congress. In Britain, the National Archives, Kew; the British Library; the London Library. In France, the Archives Diplomatiques in Paris. I would also like to thank Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden for being the best possible place to write.
This book owes a debt to the work of the late Keith Kyle, whose book Suez (originally published in 1991) was a landmark archival history on the subject. Sadly, I did not have the privilege of meeting Mr Kyle, but I was lucky enough to meet his widow, Susan, in 2013. I would like to thank her for our interesting conversation. I would also like to thank Uri Avnery for a fascinating discussion at his home in Tel Aviv in March 2015, which I have quoted from several times in this book. Warm thanks to Professor Avi Shlaim of St Anthony’s College, Oxford, who very kindly read through a version of the manuscript before publication. Any mistakes that remain are of course my responsibility.
I would like to thank all those who helped me to understand this book’s historical locations in Hungary, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories, especially Haim Berger for showing me Sde Boker and the Negev, and Yamen Elabed of Green Olive Tours for a fascinating tour around the West Bank; also Aysha Raja for her improbable enthusiasm for visiting Port Said and the Suez Canal with me. Thanks also to my generous and wonderful hosts on my research trips: Nesrine Malik and Declan Walsh in Cairo, Huma Imtiaz and Timothy Homan in Washington, DC, and Dora Napolitano, Federico Fernándes, Julia, Damian, Elsa, and Tomi in Paris.
Thank you to everyone who has given advice, offered me leads, discussed the subject, or contributed in other ways. These include Jad Adams, Rafay Alam, Anthony Bale, Adi Bloom, Faisal Devji, Kareem Fahim, Nicky Goldberg, Maya Jasanoff, Vedica Kant, David Kirkpatrick, Wm. Roger Louis, Henry Lovat, Amira el Nemr, Matthew Parker, Timothy Phillips, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, Imogen Robertson, Rachel Shabi, Catherine Shoard, Thomas Small, Nicole Taylor, Eugénie von Tunzelmann, David Wearing, Andrew Whitehurst, Maor Wolf, Robyn Young, and dozens more to whom I must apologize for not naming individually.
Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Carol Dyhouse and Nick von Tunzelmann, for their love and support, which I am delighted to return; and to Mike Witcombe: köszönöm, ani ohevet otcha, habibi.