The Revolt

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title: "The Revolt" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1951-non-fiction-books", "works-about-irgun", "history-books-about-zionism", "books-about-israel", "books-about-mandatory-palestine", "menachem-begin"] description: "Book by Menachem Begin" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolt" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Book by Menachem Begin ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox book"]

Field	Value
image	TheRevolt.jpg
caption	First US edition
author	Menachem Begin
language	Hebrew
published	{{plainlist
pub_date	1951
title_orig	המרד
translator	Samuel Katz
subject	Irgun Zvai Leumi
::

| image = TheRevolt.jpg | caption = First US edition | author = Menachem Begin | language = Hebrew | published = {{plainlist |

• W. H. Allen (UK)
• Henry Schuman (US) }} | pub_date = 1951 | title_orig = המרד | translator = Samuel Katz | subject = Irgun Zvai Leumi

The Revolt (), also published as Revolt, The Revolt: Inside Story of the Irgun and The Revolt: the Dramatic Inside Story of the Irgun, is a book about the militant Zionist organization Irgun Zvai Leumi, by one of its principal leaders, Menachem Begin.

History

The book traces the development of the Irgun from its early days in the 1930s, through its years of violent struggle in the Palestine Mandate against both British rule (the "revolt" of the title) and Arab opposition, to the outbreak of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The book is also part autobiographical, tracing Begin's own political development.

Originally published in Hebrew in 1951, an English translation by Samuel Katz was published that same year by W. H. Allen in the UK and Henry Schuman in the US. The book has gone through many editions and reprints, with the latest edition published in 2002.

The political scientist John Bowyer Bell, who studied both the Irgun and the Irish Republican Army (IRA), recalled that many of the IRA men whom he interviewed in the 1960s had read The Revolt and admired it as a manual of guerrilla warfare. It was also studied by African National Congress Nelson Mandela after he went underground in 1960, and credited it as being among the books he used a guide in planning the ANC's guerrilla campaign against the apartheid government of South Africa.

References

References

1. (15 October 2003). "John Bowyer Bell".
2. Rocker, Simon. (2012-05-17). "How Israel's 1948 struggle inspired Nelson Mandela". The Jewish Chronicle.

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