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A review by xxivo
Palestine: A Socialist Introduction by Sumaya Awad, Brian Bean
4.5
To start off I am not the most well read person in political books. To be honest, this was the first one I've ever have read. So my review is going to be from that perspective. From someone who wanted to read more about Palestine but feels unfamiliar with many political terms and such mentioned and used in the book.
Reviews in multiple places told me this is a nice introductory work that explains things without needing much previous knowledge. This was very true to me and it was fairly okay to follow. The book does seem to assume though you're familiar with US politics which I'm not as a Dutch person so that definitely had me googling things sometimes. Outside of that it was easy to pick up and keep reading so I think that is a huge strength of this book making so much crucial information easy accessible.
The information that was made so accessible taught me a lot. I knew extremely little about Palestine outside of some occasional news coverage that would come past my Instagram dashboard or Dutch news app. The book covers many different aspects of the Palestinian occupation and does that in chapters that are quite separate from each other but together form one big cohesive story. It was nice to sit down and read a chapter, to hear someone else with their own perspective and focus on the problems talk about it. The chapters sort of follow in chronological order of events happening but all of them talk about the past, present and future.
I especially enjoyed the chapter called "Multiple jeopardy: Gender and Liberation in Palestine." This chapter fights very hard against the perspective that only the men are fighting, that there are no queer people in Palestine and many more of those misconceptions. The chapter takes those apart and shares the facts about these things opening up my eyes a lot. The chapter that followed on the explanation of the intersections of Black-Palestinian solidarity was really great too.
Concluding I learned a lot from this book about Palestine, but also learned I need to start reading more about Palestine and other political issues in the world.
Reviews in multiple places told me this is a nice introductory work that explains things without needing much previous knowledge. This was very true to me and it was fairly okay to follow. The book does seem to assume though you're familiar with US politics which I'm not as a Dutch person so that definitely had me googling things sometimes. Outside of that it was easy to pick up and keep reading so I think that is a huge strength of this book making so much crucial information easy accessible.
The information that was made so accessible taught me a lot. I knew extremely little about Palestine outside of some occasional news coverage that would come past my Instagram dashboard or Dutch news app. The book covers many different aspects of the Palestinian occupation and does that in chapters that are quite separate from each other but together form one big cohesive story. It was nice to sit down and read a chapter, to hear someone else with their own perspective and focus on the problems talk about it. The chapters sort of follow in chronological order of events happening but all of them talk about the past, present and future.
I especially enjoyed the chapter called "Multiple jeopardy: Gender and Liberation in Palestine." This chapter fights very hard against the perspective that only the men are fighting, that there are no queer people in Palestine and many more of those misconceptions. The chapter takes those apart and shares the facts about these things opening up my eyes a lot. The chapter that followed on the explanation of the intersections of Black-Palestinian solidarity was really great too.
Concluding I learned a lot from this book about Palestine, but also learned I need to start reading more about Palestine and other political issues in the world.