ENDORSEMENTS


"[A]n approachable, balanced guide for the perplexed public."
— Journal of Palestine Studies

. . .

"Gregory Harms has taken an enormously complex issue and made it engagingly accessible. An intelligent, thoughtful and comprehensive introduction to a terribly and consistently misunderstood conflict."
— Sara Roy, Senior Research Scholar, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University

. . .

CHOICE magazine, American Library Association:

"Freelance writer and researcher Harms rightfully asks, "where is someone to go and get a basic understanding of the most notorious conflict of the twentieth century?" His brief but carefully written analysis, which offers clear definitions and deft explanations, significant but not lengthy details, and appropriate annotated suggestions for further reading, offers just that. Harms begins with the background history of the region, showing that Palestinians and Israelis share similar Canaanite origins; he then outlines the development of the peoples themselves through the Jewish Diaspora, the Islamic caliphates, and the emergence of nationalisms to WW II. He concludes with the controversial evolution of the conflict itself to the present time. The author cautiously notes, however, that the background survey merely introduces Arabs/Palestinians and Jews/Israelis, but that the actual conflict over the land is a recent national struggle, not a historical process. This superior and remarkably thorough, if brief, study of the Holy Land enigma is strongly recommended as an introduction, which might be followed by Charles D. Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr., A Concise History of the Middle East, both in several updated editions. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General and undergraduate collections." — B. Harris Jr., Occidental College, March 2006