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Chocolate in Palestine and Israel
Private Enterprise and State Building, 1890s-1970s
David De Vries
328 pages, 22 b&w illus.,1 tables, bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-80768-220-0 $135.00/£104.00 / Hb / Not Yet Published (May 2027)
eISBN 978-1-80768-221-7 eBook Not Yet Published
Reviews
fills an important gap in the history of chocolate production and consumptiom by examining the relationship between industry and the state. The author offers a detailed and compelling account of the growing interconnectedness between the private chocolate industry and state institutions over an extended period. Margrit Schulte Beerbuehl, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
Description
An analysis of the rapid evolution of the chocolate industry in Palestine and Israel, from the emergence of chocolate in late Ottoman Palestine, through its development as a non-essential industry under the British Mandate and expansion during the first two decades of the State of Israel. Drawing on sources from Israel, England, and Latvia, David De Vries situates the chocolate industry within broader political, social, and economic frameworks, including colonialism, nationalism, war, industrialization, and state-building. He explores the interplay between the global forces and local conditions that enabled the diffusion of chocolate from Europe, industrial growth, and eventual market dominance by a single manufacturing firm.
David De Vries is an Associate Professor at the Department of Labor Studies at Tel Aviv University, Israel. He studied history at the LSE and Warwick University. A social historian, his primary research interests are modern labor and business history of Palestine and Israel. His publications include Idealism and Bureaucracy in 1920s Palestine: The Origins of ‘Red Haifa’ (1999, in Hebrew) and Dock Workers: International Explorations in Labor History, 1790–1970 (2000, co-edited). Currently he is writing on strikes in Israeli history and is involved in a project on new perspectives in the business history of the modern Middle East.



