In this very engaging book, Anat Helman shows us how the public culture created in Israel during the very vibrant, proteans grew out of all these factors, but particularly through the encounters and sensibilities of the people during the young country's first years of statehood. With a careful hand and a sensitive ear, she recreates for us the daily practices of Israel's inhabitants, reconstructing both the large events and small details of everyday experiences with equal focus

Helman's work has achieved an important balance, combining knowledge of critical historiography and its contribution, while greatly mitigating the judgmental position of the historian. She does this by attempting to understand the period from the perspective of the everyday experience of both its better-known and anonymous actors alike.