I’ve been looking to read about David Ben-Gurion for some time. He strikes me as a fascinating figure. However, he would undoubtedly be a polarizing one. I want to read a biography on this man that is as little one-sided as possible - not rabidly claiming that he was a genius whose every action was correct and justified, not claiming him to be some senselessly malevolent, evil monster. For instance, the (expatriate) Israeli historian Ilan Pappé would likely act as if he is more the latter, being hailed as one of the foremost New Historians of Israeli history, intensely critical of its place in the Middle East. Many other historians may treat him as the former.
What is an excellent yet moderate biography of such a conflicting person?
Good ones include the rosy but personal depiction by Shimon Peres in Ben Gurion: A Political Life. You can also look up Anita Shapira’s Ben-Gurion for a good, quick biography that really gets you to know the man. If you want to wade into controversial histories and debates on his legacy and actions, there’s always the debates between Shabtai Teveth (he was a biographer of Ben Gurion) and some of the New Historians as well. Segev is a bit more to the political side, but would be a good oppositional figure to Peres and Teveth.
I don't know where you're from, so I run the risk of being Captain Obvious here, but Tom Segev just put out his take on it 6 months ago, in his book "medina bechol mechir" - a state at all costs. It's been trending high in the bestseller lists, not that it means much these days.
English is slated for winter 2019 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Segev is regarded by some as one of the New Historians, not so sure he regards himself the same. In any way, he's one of the lite-ones, both in terms of actual sales (hey, that counts too) and viewpoint. He's no Morris, and definitely not a conspiracy-theorist Pappe. He's critical, that's for damn sure. But less of a 'it's all a lie' vibe.
I've been looking for a good biography myself, and the way I see it, more of a chance of finding a good one written nowadays.
Everything written in the 60's & 70's ought to be "Ben Gurion was the shit man!", anything written in the 80's and 90's must be "Ben Gurion was shit man!", as critical against-the-man non-fiction began to appear more and more.
As we're in the postmodernist era and all, it's all a big blur now. More of a chance to read, today, a sentence like 'he ordered the ship destroyed by shelling. Then he handed the little kid next to him an ice cream cone'. That's just the era we live in.
That being said, I don't think it's much of a problem regarding Ben Gurion specifically. He was the left for a lot of time (not far left but definitely socialist left), and he just squashed the right under his foot when he could. But today the people who are far more 'against him' and who try to paint him in a bad light, are ones on the left, the more far left they are the more they try to demonize him. On the flip side, the right is through a process of re-embracing him, oftentimes citing him, in what seems to be very rightwing talk and world view. Much appreciation for being strong and leading the People of Israel, I guess, barring the Altalena mess, obviously.
So it's all a big mess. If you get a rightwing centric book about him from the 70's, if you could find one, maybe it wouldn't be that different from a 00's left-centric book about him. But a left centric book from the 60's would be very different from a left one from the 90's, that's for sure. All a big blur now, you see.
Segev, Tom, A state at all costs, 2018, Keter. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-in-bed-with-israel-s-first-pm-david-ben-gurion-as-you-never-knew-him-1.5824681 http://www.thedeborahharrisagency.com/book-page/205/david-ben-gurion-a-state-at-all-costs