For anyone seeking to understand the continuing prominence of the Likud Party in Israeli politics the story of its progenitor, Vladimir Jabotinsky, is essential. A talented writer raised in an assimilated Odessa family, Jabotinsky threw himself into Zionism after witnessing the 1903 Kishinev pogrom. He spent the rest of his life advocating for a Jewish state in Palestine, and died in 1940 in New York while campaigning for a Jewish army to fight the Nazis.

For many years, little of Jabotinsky’s original work was available in English. That situation has changed, however, with the 2006 publication by Cornell University Press of an English translation of Jabotinsky’s novel “The Five.” Now with Brian Horowitz and Leonid Katsis’ edited and annotated version of his autobiographical “Story of My Life,” published by Wayne State University Press. This version is based on a translation the editors discovered in the Jabotinsky Institute in Tel Aviv, and while their intent may be to make the Zionist-Revisionist leader’s work more available for literary purposes, the translation is also valuable for those interested in understanding his political trajectory.