The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (Cambridge Middle East Studies, Series Number 15) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521794765 ISBN 13: 9780521794763

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2001

Synopsis

By all accounts, the 1948 Palestine war was one of the most significant milestones in the modern history of the Middle East and remains one of the most intractable conflicts of modern times. Israelis call the 1948 war "The War of Independence" while Arabs call it al-Nakba or the disaster. The conventional Israeli version portrays 1948 as an unequal struggle between a Jewish David and an Arab Goliath, as a desperate, heroic, and ultimately successful battle for survival against overwhelming odds. In this version all the surrounding Arab states sent their armies into Palestine to strangle the Jewish state at birth and the Palestinians left the country on orders from their own leaders and in the expectation of a triumphal return. Since the late 1980s, however, a group of "new historians" or revisionist Israeli historians have challenged many of the claims surrounding the birth of the State of Israel and the first Arab-Israeli war. The present volume was conceived as a contribution to the ongoing debate about 1948. The War for Palestine brings together leading Israeli new historians with prominent Arab and Western scholars of the Middle East who revisit 1948 from the perspective of each of the countries involved in the war. The result is a volume that is rich in new material and new insights and which enhances considerably our understanding of the historical roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Eugene L. Rogan is a Lecturer in Modern History of the Middle East, Fellow of St. Anthony's College, and Director of the Middle East Centre at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Frontiers of State in the Late Ottoman Empire (Cambridge, 2000) and co-editor of Village, Steppe, and State: the Social Origins of Modern Jordan (St. Martin's, 1995). Avi Shlaim is a Professor of International Relations and Fellow of St. Anthony's College, University of Oxford, and he is also the Director of Graduate Studies in International Relations. He is the author of several books, the most recent one being The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (Norton, 1999). Professor Shlaim is a frequent contributor to newspapers and a media commentator on Middle Eastern affairs.

About this title

Book Description:

The Arab-Israeli conflict is one of the most intractable of modern times. This book re-examines the history of 1948, the war in which the newly born State of Israel defeated the Palestinians and the armies of the neighbouring Arab states. The chapters are written by leading Arab, Israeli and western scholars who offer new insights into this defining moment of history. The result is a major contribution to the literature on the 1948 war which will be of interest to a wide audience of students and general readers.

Review:

"This collection of essays is the first book to attempt to rewrite 1948 focusing on all the major participants. It has the virtue of being both useful for a scholarly audience and accessible for a more general audience. It is a resounding success in its own right and will inspire further rethinking of 1948 and its bearing on the present." The International History Review

"The War for Palestine is an important book that critically examines and re-examines one of the most important events in the twentieth-century Middle East. This book would be of great service to anyone--from the novice to the expert on the subject matter--who not only wants to understand the beginning of the Arab-Israeli wars, but who also wants to better understand why the Middle East is the way it is today." H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online

"They provide instant access to content as well as support for the objectivity of this fascinating account of the unending war for Palestine. This handy account analyses the varying roles of all participants, complete with breath-taking archival accounts." American Society of International Law

"A first-rate collection of studies on the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The authors have exploited public archives, memoirs, and other newly available sources to produce a richer and more balanced history of `the war for Palestine.'" Foreign Affairs

"This volume presents important and original scholarship on the 1948 war and attempts to move the disputes about its historiography from ideological into more productive terrains. It succeeds in bringing together historians from different backgrounds and demonstrates their ability to communicate and jointly challenge historical myths." The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0521794765
• ISBN 13: 9780521794763
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 252
• Editor: Rogan Eugene L., Shlaim Avi