Palestine cover art

Palestine

A Four Thousand Year History

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Thousands of incredible audiobooks and podcasts to take wherever you go.
Immerse yourself in a world of storytelling with the Plus Catalogue - unlimited listening to thousands of select audiobooks, podcasts and Audible Originals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Palestine

By: Nur Masalha
Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

This rich and magisterial work traces Palestine's millennia-old heritage, uncovering cultures and societies of astounding depth and complexity that stretch back to the very beginnings of recorded history.

Starting with the earliest references in Egyptian and Assyrian texts, Nur Masalha explores how Palestine and its Palestinian identity have evolved over thousands of years, from the Bronze Age to the present day. Drawing on a rich body of sources and the latest archaeological evidence, Masalha shows how Palestine's multicultural past has been distorted and mythologized by Biblical lore and the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

In the process, Masalha reveals that the concept of Palestine, contrary to accepted belief, is not a modern invention or one constructed in opposition to Israel, but rooted firmly in ancient past. Palestine represents the authoritative account of the country's history.

©2018 Nur Masalha (P)2021 Tantor Israel & Palestine Middle East Religious Studies Israeli-Palestinian conflict Palestine History

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Justice for Some cover art
The Palestine-Israel Conflict cover art
The Invention of the Jewish People cover art
Culture and Imperialism cover art
Orientalism cover art
Palestinian-Israeli Conflict cover art
The Maya cover art
The Rise of the West cover art
History of Bali cover art
The Oxford History of the Biblical World cover art
Palestinian Walks cover art
The General's Son cover art
Israel cover art
Arabs cover art
Escaping the Rabbit Hole cover art
What's Wrong with China cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
this book really opened my eyes to the colonial roots of current world issues and covers aspects of language, cartography, politics, ancient history and the involvement of different European cultures in the Middle East.. excellent read for those trying to understand history away from colonial bias.

thorough and broad information

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A great book of the history of Palestinian peoples across the ages. The final chapters detail the cultural appropriations that produced a national Israeli identity out of a diverse group of Jewish people that had entirely different cultural and ethnic origins, with Zionism as the glue to this project.

Eye opening, erudite history

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A hard one to rate, this, largely because I'm not sure there's anything new here. But then, that's basically the whole point.

The premise - which is really pretty much impossible to argue with - is that Palestine / Israel has been continuously populated for thousands of years, with substantial continuity of population, language, place names, and culture. Up until the last century, that is. Even the name Palestine (and its variants - remember the Biblical Philistines?) has proved remarkably resilient.

In addition, as the final couple of chapters detail, there is little hard historical or archaeological evidence for an established Jewish presence on the area, even back when the old Kingdom of Israel was meant to have existed. And, finally, the founders of the Zionist project kinda knew this - albeit I suspect they would have claimed that this evidence was deliberately destroyed - and so set out to create their own historical and cultural myths.

None of this should, really, be controversial. The fact that it has become so is doubtless why the author spends so long laying out quite granular, fairly repetitive examples of how something called Palestine (or similar, as much of the emphasis is on the evolution and continuity of etymology) was acknowledged by observers, travellers, and others throughout history.

This means much of the books is effectively made up of what amounts to lists of references - and in some cases, actual lists. Which makes it rather less engaging than I'd hoped - but a potentially very useful reference book.

It's also reminded me that I've still not read Edward Said's classic book on Palestine, written over 40 years ago now. Maybe one for later in the year.

Interesting, compelling, necessary, but sadly not that engaging

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
thorough and well-researched. a must-have for anyone interested in the history of the Palestine or the Levant/middle east generally

fantastic

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Any negative reviews will be cry baby zionists whose creation myth of a land without a people and a people without a land is taken apart with evidence by this book.

Very detailed and deep history of the land of Palestine

Myth busting

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I downloaded this book as it seemed to be another alternative perspective to the Palestine situation - unfortunately it’s so hard to listen to I am really struggling

Whilst there is undoubtedly interesting content here I have tried multiple times and just can’t listen more than 20 mins at a time

Sorry to be negative but it’s disappointing

Unfortunately Really poorly narrated

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.