A gripping day-by-day account of the 1978 Camp David summit when President Jimmy Carter persuaded Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to sign the first peace treaty in the modern Middle East, one which endures to this day. With his hallmark insight into the forces at play in the Middle East, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lawrence Wright takes us through each of the thirteen days of the Camp David conference, illuminating the issues that have made the problems of the region so intractable, as well as exploring the scriptural narratives that continue to frame the conflict. In addition to his in-depth accounts of the lives of the three leaders, Wright draws vivid portraits of other fiery personalities who were present at Camp David – including Moshe Dayan, Osama El Baz, and Zbigniew Brzezinski – as they worked furiously behind the scenes. What emerges is a riveting view of the making of this unexpected and so far unprecedented peace treaty. Wright exhibits the full extent of Carter's persistence in pushing an agreement forward, the extraordinary way in which the participants at the conference – many of them lifelong enemies – attained it, and the profound difficulties inherent in the process and its outcome