This remarkable book recounts how the Palestinians came to be constituted as a people. The authors offer perceptive observations on the status of Palestinian citizens of Israel, the successes and failures of the Oslo process, and the prospects for both Palestinians and Israelis of achieving a peaceful future together. A dispassionate and balanced analysis that provides essential background for understanding the complexities of the Middle East.

--Rashid Khalidi, University of Chicago (20040601)

A fine general history of the Palestinians now usefully updated with a history of the decade after Oslo.

--L. Carl Brown (Foreign Affairs )

This new history updates [Baruch Kimmerling's and Joel S. Midgdal's] 1993 book, Palestinians: The Making of a People, with two new analyses, one judging the effect of the Oslo peace talks and another focusing on the difficult situation of the Palestinians in Israel…In their preface, the authors immediate reject both the common claim by Palestinians that their history as a "singular people" reaches back to ancient times and the Israeli denial of any such entity before it was created by Zionist successes. Instead a "self-identified Palestinian people" evolved only in the last two centuries, as a result of European economic and political pressures and of Jewish settlement…An excellent chronology and full notes enhance a book that deserves the widest possible readership.

--Frank Day (Magill's Literary Annual )