CIE has compiled the following list of books, articles and interviews, including many available on our website, to guide understanding of the unfolding of the October 1973 Middle East war and its consequences.

Books

Adan, Avraham. On the Banks of the Suez: An Israeli General’s Personal Account of the Yom Kippur War. San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1980.

Aker, Frank. October 1973: The Arab-Israeli War. Sarasota, FL: First Edition Design Publishing, 2014.

Aly, Abdel Monem Said. The United States and the October 1973 Middle East Crisis. Ph.D. thesis, Northern Illinois University, 1982.

Allen, Peter. The Yom Kippur War. New York: Scribner, 1982.

Asher, Dani, editor. Inside Israel’s Northern Command: The Yom Kippur War on the Syrian Border. University Press of Kentucky, 2014.

Asher, Daniel. The Egyptian Strategy for the Yom Kippur War: An Analysis. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009.

Badrī, Ḥasan, Tāhā Majdūb and Ḍiyāʼal-Dīn Zuhdī. The Ramadan War, 1973. Dunn Loring, VA: T.N. Dupuy Associates, 1978.

Bar-Joseph, Uri. The Watchman Fell Asleep: The Surprise of Yom Kippur and Its Sources. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Bar-On, Mordechai. “Yom Kippur.” Moshe Dayan: Israel’s Controversial Hero. New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2012, 165-180.

Baxter, Peter. Yom Kippur: No Peace, No War: October 1973. Pen & Sword Military, 2017.

Blum, Howard. The Eve of Destruction: The Untold Story of the Yom Kippur War. New York: Harper Collins, 2003.

Boyne, Walter J. The Two O’clock War: The 1973 Yom Kippur Conflict and the Airlift That Saved Israel. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002.

Boyne, Walter J. The Yom Kippur War and the Airlift That Saved Israel. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003.

Brecher, Michael, and Benjamin Geist. Decisions in Crisis: Israel, 1967 and 1973. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.

Daigle, Craig. The Limits of Détente: The United States, the Soviet Union and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1969-73. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.

Center for Israel Education. “Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Pre-State to 1973,” on-demand course.

Dunstan, Simon. The Yom Kippur War 1973 (1): The Golan Heights. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, August 20, 2003.

Dunstan, Simon. The Yom Kippur War 1973 (2). Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2003.

Dunstan, Simon. The Yom Kippur War: The Arab-Israeli War of 1973. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2007.

El-Gamasy, Mohamed Abdel Ghani. The October War Memories of Field Marshal El-Gamasy of Egypt. Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, 1993.

Even, Jacob, Simcha B. Maoz, Moshe Tlamim, Roger Cirillo and Gideon Avidor. At the Decisive Point in the Sinai: Generalship in the Yom Kippur War. University Press of Kentucky, 2017.

Friedman, Matti. Who by Fire: War, Atonement, and the Resurrection of Leonard Cohen. Toronto: Signal, 2022.

Ford, Harold P. William E. Colby as Director of Central Intelligence. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Foreign Relations of the United States 1969-1976, Vol. 25: Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1973.

Gawrych, George. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War: The Albatross of Decisive Victory. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 1996.

Ginor, Isabella, and Gideon Remez. The Soviet-Israeli War, 1967-1973: The USSR’s Military Intervention in the Egyptian-Israeli Conflict. London: Hurst, 2017.

Golan, Galia. Yom Kippur and After: The Soviet Union and the Middle East Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.

Harkabi, Yehoshafat. October Earthquake: Yom Kippur 1973. New York: Routledge, 1974.

Heikal, Mohammed. The Road to Ramadan. New York: Quadrangle Books, 1975.

Herzog, Chaim. The War of Atonement: The Inside Story of the Yom Kippur War, 1973. London: Greenhill, 1998.

Israel State Archives. The 50th Anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, 100-plus pages.

Israelyan, Viktor Levonovič. Inside the Kremlin During the Yom Kippur War. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.

Kahalani, Avigdor, and Donn A. Starry. The Heights of Courage: A Tank Leader’s War on the Golan. Westport, CT: Praeger Paperback, 1992.

Kaufman, Uri. Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2023.

Kohler, Foy D., Leon Gouré and Mose L. Harvey. The Soviet Union and the October 1973 Middle East War: The Implications for Detente. Coral Gables, FL: Center for Advanced International Studies, University of Miami, 1974.

Kipnis, Yigal. 1973: The Road to War. Charlottesville, VA: Just World Books, 2013.

Kumaraswamy, P.R. Revisiting the Yom Kippur War. London: Frank Cass, 2000.

Lebel, Udi, and Eyal Leṿin. The 1973 Yom Kippur War and the Reshaping of Israeli Civil-Military Relations. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2015.

Maghroori, Ray, and Stephen M. Gorman. The Yom Kippur War: A Case Study in Crisis Decision-Making in American Foreign Policy. Washington: University Press of America, 1981.

Monroe, Elizabeth, and Anthony Farrar-Hockley. The Arab-Israel War, October 1973: Background and Events. London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1975.

Morse, David R. Kissinger and the Yom Kippur War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015.

National Security Archive. The October War and U.S. Policy.

O’Ballance, Edgar. No Victor, No Vanquished: The Yom Kippur War. San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1978.

Parker, Richard Bordeaux. The October War: A Retrospective. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.

Quandt, William B., Yigal Kipnis, Risa Brooks, Galen Jackson, Marc Trachtenberg, Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Khaled Elgindy, Jeremy Pressman and Jerome Slater. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023.

Rabinovich, Abraham. The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East. New York: Schocken Books, 2004.

Rodman, David. Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War: Diplomacy, Battle, and Lessons. Brighton: Sussex Academic, 2016.

Richard Nixon Library, President Nixon and the Role of Intelligence in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, January 2013.

Sachar, Howard Morley. A History of Israel, Volume II: From the Aftermath of the Yom Kippur War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Sakal, Emanuel, and Moshe Tlamim. Soldier in the Sinai: A General’s Account of the Yom Kippur War. University Press of Kentucky, 2014.

Schiff, Zeev. October Earthquake: Yom Kippur 1973. Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects, 1974.

Shaleṿ, Aryeh. Israel’s Intelligence Assessment Before the Yom Kippur War: Disentangling Deception and Distraction. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2010.

El-Shazly, Lt. General Saad. The Crossing of Suez. San Francisco: American Mideast Research, 1980.

Siniver, Asaf (ed.). The October 1973 War: Politics, Diplomacy, Legacy. London: C. Hurst and Co., 2013.

Whetten, Lawrence L. The Canal War: Four-Power Conflict in the Middle East. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974.

Articles

Bar-Joseph, Uri. “The ‘Special Means of Collection’: The Missing Link in the Surprise of the Yom Kippur War,” Middle East Journal, 67:4 (2013): 531–546.

Ben‐Zvi, Abraham. “Between Warning and Response: The Case of the Yom Kippur War,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence, 4:2 (1990): 227-242.

Blanga, Yehuda. “‘The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming’: American Management of the Crisis Associated With Ending the October 1973 War,” Middle Eastern Studies, 49: 4 (2013): 563-580.

Cohen, Stuart A. “Operational Limitations of Reserve Forces: The Lessons of the 1973 War,” Israel Affairs, 6:1 (1999): 70-103.

Ezov, Amiram. “The Crossing Challenge: The Suez Canal Crossing by the Israel Defense Forces During the Yom Kippur War of 1973,” The Journal of Military History, 82:2 (2018): 461-490.

Gazit, M. “Egypt and Israel — Was There a Peace Opportunity Missed in 1971?” Journal of Contemporary History, 32:1 (1997): 97-115.

Handel, Michael. “The Yom Kippur War and the Inevitability of Surprise,” International Studies Quarterly, 21.3 (September 1977): 461–502.

Kahana, Ephraim. “Early Warning Versus Concept: The Case of the Yom Kippur War 1973,” Intelligence and National Security, 17:2 (2002): 81-104.

Keynan, Irit. “The Memory of the Holocaust and Israel’s Attitude Toward War Trauma, 1948-1973: The Collective vs. the Individual,” Israel Studies, 23, No. 2 (2018): 95–117.

Lord, Amnon. “Intelligence Failure or Paralysis?” Jewish Political Studies Review, 24:3-4 (2012): 52–64.

Levey, Zach. “Anatomy of an Airlift: United States Military Assistance to Israel During the 1973 War,” Cold War History, 8:4 (October 2008): 481-501.

Menshawy, Mustafa. “Turning ‘Defeat’ Into ‘Victory’: The Power of Discourse on the 1973 War in Egypt,” Middle Eastern Studies, 52:6 (2016): 897-916.

Orkibi, Eithan. “Resisting the Cultural Division of Protest: The Israeli Demobilized Reservists’ Protest After the Yom Kippur War (1973-1974),” Cultural Dynamics, 29: 1-2 (2017): 23-38.

Pierri, Bruno. “A Chess Game in the Middle East: Dr. Kissinger’s Diplomacy Against the USSR During the Yom Kippur War,” Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali, 76:3 (2009): 351-380.

Mintz, Alex, and Itai Schneiderman. “From Groupthink to Polythink in the Yom Kippur War Decisions of 1973,” European Review of International Studies, 5, No. 1 (2018): 48–66.

Rezk, Dina. “Re-Evaluating the Yom Kippur ‘Intelligence Failure’: The Cultural Lens in Crisis,” The International History Review, 39:3 (2017): 470-495.

Rodman, David. “Combined Arms Warfare: The Israeli Experience in the 1973 Yom Kippur War,” Defence Studies, 15:2 (2015): 161.

Rodman, David. “The Impact of American Arms Transfers to Israel During the 1973 Yom Kippur War,” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, 7:3 (July 2013): 107-114.

Rostow, Eugene V. “The Illegality of the Arab Attack on Israel of October 6, 1973,” American Journal of International Law, 69:2 (1975): 272–89.

Sheffy, Yigal. “Overcoming Strategic Weakness: The Egyptian Deception and the Yom Kippur War,” Intelligence and National Security,21:5(January 2007): 809-828.

Shlaim, Avi. “Failures in National Intelligence Estimates: The Case of the Yom Kippur War,” World Politics, 28:3 (April 1976): 348-380.

Stein, Kenneth W. “Evolving a Diplomatic Legacy From the October War: The US, Egyptian, and Israeli Triangle,” in Asaf Siniver (ed.), The October 1973 War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Legacy, London: Hurst and Co., 2013, 209-229.

Stein, Kenneth W. “The Link Between War and Diplomacy: The Kilometer 101 Talks After the October 1973,” Center for Israel Education, 2001.

Stein, Kenneth W. “The 1973 War — A Short History,” Center for Israel Education. (Spanish)

Sterling, Brent L. “The Yom Kippur War: Ferocious and Fortuitous Fight,” in Other People’s Wars: The US Military and the Challenge of Learning From Foreign Conflicts, Georgetown University Press, 2021: 189-272.

Tal, David. “A Tested Alliance: The American Airlift to Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War,” Israel Studies, 19:3 (2014): 29-54.

Tal, David. “Who Needed the October 1973 War?” Middle Eastern Studies, 52:5 (2016): 737-753.

Tsoref, Hagai. “Golda Meir’s Leadership in the Yom Kippur War,” Israel Studies, 23, No. 1 (2018): 50-72.

Interviews

Ken Stein’s personal interviews with officials who shed light on the October 1973 war.

Atherton, Roy, part of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s negotiating team after the war and later ambassador for Arab-Israeli negotiations and U.S. ambassador to Egypt, 1992

Bashir, Tahsin, media spokesman for Egyptian President Anwar Sadat before, during and after the war, 1992 and 1993.

Dinitz, Simcha, Israeli ambassador to the United States during the war and through the 1978 Camp David negotiations, 1992.

El-Gamasy, Mohamed, Egyptian chief of staff during the war and negotiator with Aharon Yariv at the Kilometer 101 talks immediately after the war, 1992.

Gazit, Mordechai, adviser to Golda Meir before, during and after the war, 1992.

Khaddam, Abdel Halim, Syrian foreign minister, 1993.

Rodman, Peter, part of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s negotiating team after the war, 1992.

Saunders, Hal, part of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s negotiating team after the war, 1992.

Sirry, Omar, Egyptian Foreign Ministry staff during the war and negotiator at the Kilometer 101 talks, 1993.

Sisco, Joseph, part of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s negotiating team after the war, 1992.

Sterner, Michael, head of the U.S. State Department’s Egyptian desk before, during and after the war, 1992 and 1993.

Tamir, General Abrasha, IDF Strategic Planning Division, 1992.

Veliotes, Nicholas, U.S. Embassy in Israel during the war, 1995.

Yariv, General Aharon, Israeli negotiator at the Kilometer 101 talks after the war, 1992.