Palestinians: The Making of a People [Paperback]

Baruch Kimmerling (Author), Joel S. Migdal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 1998

In the 100-year struggle for Palestine, history itself has been a battlefield, as Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs seek to challenge each other's claim to national identity. Whatever the outcome of the current phase in regional affairs, no real progress toward peace can occur before agreement is reached about the events that have shaped the present and will remain dominant influences over the future. Baruch Kimmerling and Joel Migdal have moved in this direction with this account of the origins and history of the Palestinian people.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The authors argue that the Israelis have failed to grasp the extent to which their own society has been shaped by its ongoing encounter with the Palestinians. In this compact, sobering, informative history of the Palestinians ("a people at the center of one of the most volatile conflicts of our time"), Kimmerling and Migdal assess the impact of Turkish, British and Israeli rule over the indigenous population, focusing primarily on the last 60 years. This period includes the Great Arab Revolt of the 1930s, the scattering of the Palestinian community in the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, the Six-Day War in 1967 (when the majority of Palestinians came under Israeli control), the Intifada ("shaking off") that began in 1987, and the international discrediting of the PLO leadership for backing Saddam Hussein during the Gulf war. The authors conclude that Palestinian self-determination will be realized only with the assent of a secure Israel, and that Israeli acceptance throughout the Middle East will need Palestinian approval. Kimmerling is an associate professor of sociology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem; Migdal chairs the international studies program at the University of Washington.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Sociologist Kimmerling and international relations specialist Migdal use their familiarity with the Middle East to write a sober historical examination of a people and their destined role in the world. Migdal builds upon his earlier work, Palestinian Society and Politics (Princeton, 1980), and with Kimmerling provides perhaps the best descriptive treatment of the Palestinians to appear in decades. The authors focus on the modern development of the Palestinians, from their revolt against Ottoman Turkish authority in 1834 through the intifada of 1987. They interweave individuals, families, and events to provide the reader with a first-rate historical picture of a people who play a disproportionate role in world politics relative to their number. A chronological list of major events provides an excellent historical panorama. This is a good supplement to the historical pictorials, such as Sarah Graham-Brown's Palestinians and Their Society 1880-1946 (Quartet, 1980) and Walid Khalidi's Before Their Diaspora (Inst. of Palestine Studies, 1984). Well recommended for general readers and specialists alike.
- Sanford R. Silverburg, Catawba Coll., Salisbury, N.C.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (July 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674652231
• ISBN-13: 978-0674652231
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #785,303 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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