The Palestine Exploration Fund, established in 1865, is the oldest organization created specifically for the study of the Levant. It helped to spur evangelical tourism to the region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which in turn generated a huge array of literature that presented Palestine as a 'Holy Land', in which local populations were often portrayed as a simple appendix to well-known Biblical scenarios. In the first book focused on modern and contemporary Palestine to provide a top-down and a bottom-up perspective on the process of simplification of the region and its inhabitants under British influence, Lorenzo Kamel offers a comprehensive outlook based on primary sources from 17 archives that spans a variety of cultural and social boundaries, including local identities, land tenure, toponymy, religious and political charges, institutions and borders. By observing the historical dynamics through which a fluid region composed by different cultures and societies has been simplified, the author explores how perceptions of Palestine have been affected today.WINNER OF THE PALESTINE BOOK AWARD 2016

Cultural heritage and illicit trafficking in the Middle East are two key topics of our time. The book sheds light on both aspects, and identifies the need to democratize cultural heritage, by giving greater control to local communities. It also investigates the link between local hotbeds of conflict and violence in countries such as Syria and Iraq, as well as war economics, transnational criminal networks and the politics of deliberate destruction and theft of cultural heritage. Finally, the chapters analyze the impact of non-violent and violent non-state actors, fragile states, forced migration, environmental degradation, as well as how local and international institutions have reacted to the dramatic events which the region and its inhabitants have experienced in recent years

The emerging literature on the so-called 'Arab Spring' has largely focused on the evolution of the uprisings in cities and power centres. In order to reach a more diversified and inner understanding of the 'Arab Spring', this edited book examines how peripheries have reacted and contributed to the historical dynamics at work in the Middle East and North Africa. It rejects the idea that the 'Arab Spring' is a unitary process and shows that it consists of diverse Springs which differed in terms of opportunity structure, strategies of a variance of actors, and outcomes. This book looks at geographical, religious, gender and ethnical peripheries, conceptualizing periphery as a dynamic structure which can expand and contract. It shows that the seeds for changing the face of politics and polities are within peripheries themselves. Focusing on the voices of peripheries can therefore be a powerful tool to 'de-simplify' the reading of the Arab Spring and to reshape the paradigmatic schemes through which to look at this part of the world. This book was published as a special issue of Mediterranean Politics.

This compelling analysis of the modern Middle East - based on research in 19 archives and numerous languages - shows the transition from an internal history characterised by local realities that were plural and multidimensional, and where identities were flexible and hybrid, to a simplified history largely imagined and imposed by external actors. This version of history is distinguished by the politicisation of these identities with the aim of better grasping and, ultimately, controlling them. The author shows - mainly through a study of key moments, including the germs of competing ethno-religious visions in the 1830s, the Ottoman Tanzimat, the introduction of the Millet system, the Balfour Declaration, post-World War One treaties, and the creation of borders - how the once heterogeneous identities of Middle Eastern peoples were sealed into a standardised and uniform version that persists to this day.

This compelling analysis of the modern Middle East - based on research in 19 archives and numerous languages - shows the transition from an internal history characterised by local realities that were plural and multidimensional, and where identities were flexible and hybrid, to a simplified history largely imagined and imposed by external actors. The author demonstrates how the once-heterogeneous identities of Middle Eastern peoples were sealed into a standardised and uniform version that persists to this day. He also sheds light on the efforts that peoples in the region - in the context of a new process of homogenisation of diversities - are exerting in order to get back into history, regaining possession of their multifaceted pasts.