Muslih has done years' worth of archival research and interviewing, and the result is the uncovering of a substantial and valuable new body of information about nationalist ideas in the Levant during the all-critical 1918-20 period. Unfortunately, the author lacks any sense of what to do with what he has discovered, so the result is a profoundly confused and misconceived study. Of many problems, by far the most damaging is the persistent presentation of Palestinian nationalism and Pan-Arab nationalism as the two main choices facing the residents of Palestine; Muslih's own data clearly and repeatedly show that the real choice was between Palestinian nationalism and Pan-Syrian nationalism. His blindness to Pan-Syrian ideology renders much of his analysis worse than useless, for it muddies an already complex issue.
On another matter, "this book was made possible in part by a grant from the Institute from Palestine Studies." It is extremely distressing to see a respectable university press stooping to accept funds from the Institute for Palestine, Studies, an arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Shall we soon see the Irish Republican Army publishing with Harvard University Press? Or the Red Army with Yale University Press?
