The Desert Experience in Israel: Communities, Arts, Science, and Education in the Negev

The Desert Experience in Israel shares the responses of settlers, artists, poets, scientists, and educators who lived near the Blaustein Institute in the Negev Desert of Israel as they answer the question, "What difference has living in the desert year round made in your work? "

The book begins with a reprint of David Ben-Gurion's call for settlement and science in the desert. This is followed by an account of life in early kibbutzim, a discussion of the meaning of the term "desert," accounts of religion in the desert, and the relationship of the desert experience to art, theatre, literature, poetry, sculpture, and the use of color categories by the Bedouin. Accounts of research on solar energy, fossil fuel, water, microalgae, runoff agriculture, fish, and architecture are followed by desert-related activities in the high school, field school, and research institute.

A. PAUL HARE is Professor of Sociology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. From 1973 to 1980, he was Professor of Sociology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He is the author of Creativity in Small Groups (1982), Social Interaction as Drama (1985), Dramaturgical Analysis of Social Interaction, with H. Blumberg (Praeger, 1988), and Small Group Research, with Blumberg, Davies, and Kent (1991). He is also the co-editor of The Symlog Practitioner, with R. Polley and P. Stone (Praeger, 1988) and eight other books, and the author of numerous journal articles.