A review by mothgoth
Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha

4.0

This was a lot!! I'm not an ancient history expert or even casual reader, so a lot of this was a bit of a slower read as I was trying to place the people, places and empires mentioned. The author did a pretty good job giving context to a lot of it. I appreciated the the mention of nation-states being a relatively modern invention and that countries existed in a different way throughout time than they do now, with borders and understandings shifting. Palestine seemed to exist under various "authorities" throughout history, such as during the Roman empire, Byzantine empire, various Muslim rulers, the Ottoman empire... despite this, the Palestinians were a distinct group of people, their land and country producing goods, trading, and being known for art and poetry. After being colonized, there was an effort to erase this history and even the land, with towns being destroyed to place Israeli settlements on top, and even a "re-forestation" effort by the JNF to attempt to wipe out evidence of there being towns underneath these newly planted forests. However, history seems clear that Palestinians and Palestine have existed throughout centuries and the evidence is there through maps, administration records, pottery, family lines, writing... I'd definitely be more interested in reading histories of the Middle East in general after checking this out and seeing it through another people's perspective. This was good.