　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 NAKBA
　　　　　　　　　　　　Palestine,1948,and the Claims of Memory

　　Edited by Ahmad H. Sa'di , Leila Abu-Lughod

　　2007, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK

AHMAD H. SA'DI is a senior lecturer in the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

LEILA ABU-LUGHOD is professor of anthropology and gender studies at Columbia Univesity .

"The catastrophic expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homeland in 1948 is a historic injustice that demands the attention of the entire world. Americans, Israelis, and Jews in every nation must especially give heed to this astonishing collection of masterfully essays. Far from being a melanchoy assemblage of anger and selfpity, this book is a major political and scholarly achievment, rerflecting deeplu on the traumatic roots of national identity, the role of memory and amnesia, history and mythical narrative , legal doctrine and eyewitness testimony, women's experience, men's businees, and lost places found again in song, story, and film. This is essential reading for anyone who longs gor a just settlement to `the question of Palestine`,the question of the Middle East, or, indeed, the establishment of a world order of peace and justic."
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　-W.J.T.Mitchell, The University of Chicago,　and
　　　　　　　author of What Do Pictures Wnat?:The Lives and Loves and of Images

"These essays from a formidable, thoughtful, and incisive collection. The analyses here engage trauma studies, the problem of the historical construction of memory, and the ways politics seize upon and efface memory for the purposes of establishment historio- graphical control over the past. These writings are pervasively critical, in the best sense, demonstrating at once the difficulty and the necessity of memory. At stake in the volume is not only how to tell the story of this dispossession but also how to tell the story of why this story has become untellable in so many quarters. Here one finds lament, anguish, anger, and political demands for justice in a set of analyses that are thoughtful, self-ref-
lective, and complex."
　　　-Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor, University of California at Berkeley