A History of Palestine

It is impossible to understand Palestine today without a careful reading of its distant and recent past. But until now there has been no single volume in English that tells the history of the events--from the Ottoman Empire to the mid-twentieth century--that shaped modern Palestine. The first book of its kind, "A History of Palestine" offers a richly detailed interpretation of this critical region's evolution.
Starting with the prebiblical and biblical roots of Palestine, noted historian Gudrun Krmer examines the meanings ascribed to the land in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions. Paying special attention to social and economic factors, she examines the gradual transformation of Palestine, following the history of the region through the Egyptian occupation of the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman reform era, and the British Mandate up to the founding of Israel in 1948. Focusing on the interactions of Arabs and Jews, "A History of Palestine" tells how these connections affected the cultural and political evolution of each community and Palestine as a whole.

List of Illustrations vii
List of Tables ix
Preface xi
Abbreviations xiii
CHAPTER ONE: Names and Borders 1
CHAPTER TWO: The Holiness of the "Holy Land" 18
CHAPTER THREE: Contrasts: Palestine, 1750-1840 37
CHAPTER FOUR: The Age of Reform, 1840-1914 71
CHAPTER FIVE: Evolving Nationalisms: Zionism and Arabism, 1880-1914 101
CHAPTER SIX: "A Land without a People for a People without a Land"? Population, Settlement, and Cultivation, 1800-1914 128
CHAPTER SEVEN: World War I and the British Mandate 139
CHAPTER EIGHT: Double Standard, or Dual Obligation 164
CHAPTER NINE: "Two Peoples in One Land" 188
CHAPTER TEN: The Mufti and the Wailing Wall 216
CHAPTER ELEVEN: From Unrest to Uprising 238
CHAPTER TWELVE: The Arab Uprising, 1936-39 264
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Triumph and Catastrophe: From World War II to the State of Israel 296
Bibliography 325
Index 343