Allon is a great writer, both in his "Scientifc" writing (Like the Suberb "A Curtain of Sand" that is a must to any strategist.) and in his storytelling. "My Father's House" is a great autobiography, written with a lot of love, nostalgy and humor. In his regular modesty that is uncommon among diplomats or Generals (And he was both.), especially in their autobiographies, Allon is not bragging in his great deeds, he isn't even placing himself in the center of the book, but he is telling us his own story, through his father's story. He is telling us about why he had become the person that he is, the person that had done all the great things that doesn't appear in the book. This book is giving a personal and very interesting point of view on the life in the pre-Israel Palestine told by a Jewish person who was born there, but more important, this book is reminding us that even the greatest people once had Fathers. Finish this book, and go give your dad a big hug!

There are many books about Israel, and even more than that, on the Israeli army. In case you wonder why you need to fish out a book from 1970, well, it's because this book is one of a kind. I think Yigal Allon is not a very famous chrecter in the outside world, not as Moshe Dayan or David Ben Gurion. But if he doesn't it is not because he didn't do anything important, but because his natural modesty covered on his great actions.
He was a briliant strategist, and yet a peace-lover who talked with the Arabs, understood them that was the first to offer a peace-plan with the Palestinians, back in 1968.

Yigal Allon was jewish, and was borned is Palestine. He witnessed the creation and development of the Jewish defence, andwhen his time arrived, he took a part in it. He was a member of the respond forces that attacked the Arab bases in respons to their attacks on Jewish settlements. He was the commander of the Palmah, the Hagana's elite unit. In the1948 war he commanded "Yiphtah" operation at the Galilee, and when he was turned to the commander of the southern front, his strategy and briliant tactics had beaten the strong Egyptian army. In 1967 he was offered to be the minister of defence, but refused, and yet was a part of the security counsol and an advisor to the prime minister in security and defence manners.

He wrote many other books, but the most important, in my opinion, is his first, "A curtain of Sand" from 1948 (Written during and after the war, was upgraded after the 1967 war.) where Allon is analysing Israel's strategist situation and actually designing its army.

So, as you can see, by buying this book you don't buy "Another book about the Israeli Army" you buy a book written by a man who was one of the main creators of it, and that just because of his foreseeing the future and the needs of the state of Israel, the Israeli army is as it is today.