3.3 "collaborative, shocking, traumatic" stars !!

Thank you to Netgalley, all the authors/editors and The New Press. This was originally released in 2012 and Netgalley recently made this available again. I am providing an honest review.

This book is a labor of love and truth (s). This was written over a period of several years organized by the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East. The contributors are Israeli and Palestinian teachers and historians that wanted to present a dual narrative approach to the history of Israel/Palestine over the past century. The book is written for High School and University students to present a holistic approach. To me this is 5 star amazing.

I have so many holes in my knowledge of Israel/Palestine and I hoped that this book would help. Boy did it ever. Most of my understanding came from biased Western news reports and documentaries or from very opinionated friends of both regions. This book helped me immensely and I am left despairing, hopeless and immensely sad for all that has transpired in the past hundred years to the region and the immense suffering of two peoples. I am also left angry (but not surprised) at the games (strategies) of UK/France in the contribution of this ongoing human tragedy.I am not going to say anymore except that this was incredibly informative and provided me with much needed context in understanding the present conflicts.

My main difficulty with this book was the formatting of the ecopy. (in a nutshell beyond terrible).

The physical book would include the two histories on opposite pages.....the ebook had all of these strange page breaks and this was very jarring when involving such important recent history. The perspectives were not labeled and often I was disoriented and frustrated until I got my bearings again. Many of the diagrams and maps were also not translated into English. The quality of the information also varied and the earlier history was more robust and then seemed to get rushed and at times a bit sloppy.

I would highly recommend the physical book to read it as the project intended. Also having some knowledge of the geography of the Middle East will be extremely helpful to a reader.

Overall a good to very good reading experience (3.3 stars) and will sit on my 3.5 star bookshelf.

More infographics and visiuals would help to break up the monotony of some of the text. Additionally, while I think this book does fairly good job providing context from both sides, its sometimes feels like proper care the legistamicy of "vicitm" claims coming from Israel could be presented in a way that better demonstrates the asymmetry and the fact that Israel has been occupying Palestine for decades.

This book is an absolute must-read! I have been recommending it to all of my friends. It was written by a team of educators (Israeli and Palestinian) to tell the parallel histories and interpretation and impact of key events on lives in the region. In reading it, while there are differences in interpretation there are also glimmers of hope and common views that can begin bridging the divide in viewpoints to be able to have a robust conversation about current events. I learned a lot by reading this book and feel it gave me a good foundation of the history. The structure is unique -- on one side of the page is the Israeli history and on the other side is the Palestinian history. It took me awhile to figure out the best way to digest it so I ended up realizing what worked for me, was to read through one perspective first and then read through the other perspective. I highly recommend this book!

Thank you to Netgalley and The New Press for an ARC and I voluntarily left this review.

I was looking for resources to recommend to students and patrons who want to expand their understanding of the history of Israel and Palestine in light of recent events--especially books that look at the region and the conflict from multiple perspectives in a nuanced way--and this is exactly the kind of material I needed. I am grateful to the publisher for making this title available for review at this time.

A necessary read during these times where the conflict has only increased. It’s necessary to learn both side so we can effectively help the region