In the 100-year struggle for Palestine, history itself has been a battlefield, as Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs seek to challenge each other's claim to national identity. Whatever the outcome of the current phase in regional affairs, no real progress toward peace can occur before agreement is reached about the events that have shaped the present and will remain dominant influences over the future. Baruch Kimmerling and Joel Migdal have moved in this direction with this account of the origins and history of the Palestinian people.