Status
Call number
Collection
Publication
Description
2014 Dayton Literary Peace Prize -- Nonfiction Runner Up The complex histories and memories of Jewish and Palestinian Israelis today frame Israel's future possibilities for peace. 1948: As Jewish refugees, survivors of the Holocaust, struggle toward the new State of Israel, Arab refugees are fleeing, many under duress. Sixty years later, the memory of trauma has shaped both peoples' collective understanding of who they are. After a war, the victors write history. How was the story of the exiled Palestinians erased - from textbooks, maps, even the land? How do Jewish and Palestinian Israelis now engage with the histories of the Palestinian Nakba ("Catastrophe") and the Holocaust, and how do these echo through the political and physical landscapes of their country? Vividly narrated, with extensive original interview material, Contested Land, Contested Memory examines how these tangled histories of suffering inform Jewish and Palestinian-Israeli lives today, and frame Israel's possibilities for peace.… (more)
Awards
Language
User reviews
Nearly every decade (and sometimes every year) since the founding of the Israeli nation, one side began warring with the other. Roberts’s account makes sure to balance the perspectives of both sides, but unfortunately, both sides have sad tales to tell. This is decidely not a “happy fun times” book, but you will gain a lot of history insight surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflict. You can read this one in a day, but it will stay with you for a while. This book is further proof that history is not a collection of facts and figures, but rather a living continuum of experiences, actions, and people. Every day in the Middle East is a new opportunity to either strengthen or degrade relations between the parties. Let us hope the pains of the past inform their future. A tragic but informative read.