An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba

Nur Masalha editor Doctor Nahla Abdo editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Published:15th May '18

Should be back in stock very soon

This hardback is available in another edition too:

An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba cover

A definitive study of the Palestinian Nakba, interweaving oral testimony from 1948 and the present day to reveal an ongoing process aimed at the erasure of Palestinian history and memory.

In 2018, Palestinians mark the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, when over 750,000 people were uprooted and forced to flee their homes in the early days of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even today, the bitterness and trauma of the Nakba remains raw, and it has become the pivotal event both in the shaping of Palestinian identity and in galvanising the resistance to occupation.

Unearthing an unparalleled body of rich oral testimony, An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba tells the story of this epochal event through the voices of the Palestinians who lived it, uncovering remarkable new insights both into Palestinian experiences of the Nakba and into the wider dynamics of the ongoing conflict. Drawing together Palestinian accounts from 1948 with those of the present day, the book confronts the idea of the Nakba as an event consigned to the past, instead revealing it to be an ongoing process aimed at the erasure of Palestinian memory and history. In the process, each unique and wide-ranging contribution leads the way for new directions in Palestinian scholarship.

Apart from its prestige as an academic work that stays authentic to the voice of the Palestinian people, the book is also home to a simple truth…: “I am Palestinian, and I do not have another land".' * Middle East Monitor *
A passionate and ambitious work of politically engaged scholarship that positions itself as an actor in the fight to change the world. This is cultural activism at its best. * Ahdaf Soueif, author of Cairo: My City, Our Revolution *
A landmark intervention, this cross-disciplinary book provides innovative analytical frameworks for studying the persistent erasure of Palestine. This insightful and comprehensive work proposes alternative ways of knowing and telling, rearticulating the Nakba as an ongoing process of dispossession. * Ella Shohat, NYU, and author of On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and Other Displacements *
An impressive collection and a very significant contribution to the scholarly work on the oral history of the Nakba. * Ilan Pappé, co-editor of Israel and South Africa: The Many Faces of Apartheid *
Reveals the full magnificence of Palestinian responses to Israel’s systematic post-1948 programme of memoricide. Abdo and Masalha are here establishing a new interdisciplinary field, Nakba Studies, in which Palestinians become subjects and agents in their own history. * John Docker, University of Western Australia *
A wide-ranging collection by leading oral historians, its moving first person narratives confirm the reparative force of listening to voices which have been silenced in the ongoing colonization of Palestine. * Lila Abu-Lughod, Columbia University *
Moving and acutely observed, this timely and necessary anthology is an indispensable addition for all readers concerned with the Israeli colonisation of Palestine. * Ronit Lentin, author of Thinking Palestine *
Breathtaking in scope, its compelling essays complicate our understanding of the Nakba, rendering it both more visceral and historically profound. It is an invaluable contribution to oral history, gender studies and the broader genre of genocide studies. * Sherna Berger Gluck, Director Emerita of the Oral History Program, California State University *

ISBN: 9781786993496

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 566g

328 pages