Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900

By Beshara Doumani

Book Overview

Drawing on previously unused primary sources, this book paints an intimate and vivid portrait of Palestinian society on the eve of modernity. Through the voices of merchants, peasants, and Ottoman officials, Beshara Doumani offers a major revision of standard interpretations of Ottoman history by investigating the ways in which urban-rural dynamics in a provincial setting appropriated and gave meaning to the larger forces of Ottoman rule and European economic expansion. He traces the relationship between culture, politics, and economic change by looking at how merchant families constructed trade networks and cultivated political power, and by showing how peasants defined their identity and formulated their notions of justice and political authority. Original and accessible, this study challenges nationalist constructions of history and provides a context for understanding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is also the first comprehensive work on the Nablus region, Palestine's trade, manufacturing, and agricultural heartland, and a bastion of local autonomy. Doumani rediscovers Palestine by writing the inhabitants of this ancient land into history.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520203704
• ISBN13: 9780520203709
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A Masterpiece of the history of Nablus with a scholarly approach

This book documents the most accurate account of the region I have ever read. Others have attempted to do so but they were short of projecting the Micro and Macro dynamics of the ruling families of the area. Professor Doumani's description and approach gives you an insight to the daily lives, politics, and personalities of the time. Excellent Work, I do recommend this book for anyone interested in learning about Palestine.