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A review by aeudaimonia
Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.0
Like many other reviewers have been saying, it's definitely dense and hard to get through, but so, so important. I wouldn't say it was a book for beginners; Masalha takes an extremely academic approach to history, drawing from dozens of scholars including Rashid Khalidi, another author whose work I highly recommend, and focuses less on a historical narrative and more on interpretation (personal and place names, knowledge/power nexus, etc.). The book does read more like a scholarly article than, say, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine, but occupies a critical space in Palestine studies: undermining the Zionist myths of "a land without a people" and of (European) natives returning to their rightful country, Masalha centers indigenous histories and conventions, and reveals the rich multicultural, multi-religious history of Palestine.
The only thing that keeps it from being a 5-star read for me is the editing. First, each chapter is composed of sections (can be anywhere between 1 and 15 pages long). These sections, again, are not chunks of a larger historical narrative but meta-historical categories (so many sections on toponymy! But so interesting, especially if you make it to anthroponymy in Chapter 10). Because the sections aren't necessarily meant to reflect a cohesive whole, Masalha ends up relaying the same information again and again whenever it's relevant, and as if for the first time. This is good if you're still new to Palestinian, Middle Eastern, and/or Mediterranean history and struggle with names and locations, but by chapter 7 it all felt unnecessarily repetitive. Secondly, and I really hate to say this, there are just too many type errors. And not just misspelled words (although there are plenty), but whole sentences repeated verbatim paragraphs apart. On one hand this makes those passages much more difficult to read (especially since the subject matter is already difficult) but also renders the whole book longer and more complicated than it needed to be. Personally it wasn't enough for me to put down the book or doubt Masalha's scholarship - he is strong in the citations and notes department - but I worry that it'll turn future readers off of an important work like this. I'm hopeful that future editions will address the manuscript errors, and that this book will continue to be published for many years to come.
The only thing that keeps it from being a 5-star read for me is the editing. First, each chapter is composed of sections (can be anywhere between 1 and 15 pages long). These sections, again, are not chunks of a larger historical narrative but meta-historical categories (so many sections on toponymy! But so interesting, especially if you make it to anthroponymy in Chapter 10). Because the sections aren't necessarily meant to reflect a cohesive whole, Masalha ends up relaying the same information again and again whenever it's relevant, and as if for the first time. This is good if you're still new to Palestinian, Middle Eastern, and/or Mediterranean history and struggle with names and locations, but by chapter 7 it all felt unnecessarily repetitive. Secondly, and I really hate to say this, there are just too many type errors. And not just misspelled words (although there are plenty), but whole sentences repeated verbatim paragraphs apart. On one hand this makes those passages much more difficult to read (especially since the subject matter is already difficult) but also renders the whole book longer and more complicated than it needed to be. Personally it wasn't enough for me to put down the book or doubt Masalha's scholarship - he is strong in the citations and notes department - but I worry that it'll turn future readers off of an important work like this. I'm hopeful that future editions will address the manuscript errors, and that this book will continue to be published for many years to come.