Discord In Zion

With the decline of the Whig interpretation of history, historians in the past few decades have re-examined the origins and the nature of the English Revolution from various perspectives. The constitutional conflict 1 between the crown and parliament has been analyzed. The Puritan mind 2 has been explored. Social change in England during the century prior 3 to the outbreak of the Civil War has been anatomized. The composition 4 of the Long Parliament has been dissected. Every student of the English Revolution is now well aware that the crisis in seventeenth-century Eng land, like all other major events in history, was a complex phenomenon in which men as well as ideas, religious convictions as well as economic interests all came into play. For all students of this period, the works of Samuel R. Gardiner, am plified by Sir Charles H. Firth, remain the chief source of knowledge and 1 It should be noted that while former historians from Hallam and Macaulay to G. M. Trevelyan and J R. Tanner all interpreted the English Revolution in terms of the constitution, recent historical scholarship in this respect is more concerned with the evolution and functioning of the constitution rather than the constitutional rights and wrongs of either party in the conflict. See Wallace Notestein, The Winning of the Initiative by the House of Commons (London, 1924); Margaret A.

In this erudite and groundbreaking series of essays, renowned author Joseph Massad asks and answers key questions, such as: What has been the main achievement of the Zionist movement? What accounts for the failure of the Palestinian National Movement to win its struggle against Israel? What do anti-Semitism, colonialism and racism have to do with the Palestinian/Israeli 'conflict'? Joseph Massad offers a radical departure from mainstream analysis in order to expose the causes for the persistence of the 'Palestinian Question'. He proposes that it is not in de-linking the Palestinian Question from the Jewish Question that a resolution can be found, but by linking them as one and the same question. All other proposed solutions, the author argues, are bound to fail. Deeply researched and documented, this book analyzes the failure of the 'peace process' and proposes that a solution to the Palestinian Question will not be found unless settler-colonialism, racism, and anti-Semitism are abandoned as the ideological framework for a resolution. Individual essays further explore the struggle over Jewish identity in Israel and the struggle among Palestinians over what constitutes the Palestinian Question today.

Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices brings together for the first time a selection of trailblazing essays by Ella Shohat, an internationally renowned theorist of postcolonial and cultural studies of Iraqi-Jewish background. Written over the past two decades, these twelve essays—some classic, some less known, some new—trace a powerful intellectual trajectory as Shohat rigorously teases out the consequences of a deep critique of Eurocentric epistemology, whether to rethink feminism through race, nationalism through ethnicity, or colonialism through sexuality. Shohat’s critical method boldly transcends disciplinary and geographical boundaries. She explores such issues as the relations between ethnic studies and area studies, the paradoxical repercussions for audio-visual media of the “graven images” taboo, the allegorization of race through the refiguring of Cleopatra, the allure of imperial popular culture, and the gender politics of medical technologies. She also examines the resistant poetics of exile and displacement; the staging of historical memory through the commemorations of the two 1492s, the anomalies of the “national” in Zionist discourse, the implications of the hyphen in the concept “Arab-Jew,” and the translation of the debates on orientalism and postcolonialism across geographies. Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices not only illuminates many of the concerns that have animated the study of cultural politics over the past two decades; it also points toward new scholarly possibilities.

For two thousand years, Christianity has had a varying but immense influence on world history. Accomplished historian Geoffrey Blainey leads us through the history of this world-changing religion. A Short History of Christianity vividly describes many of the significant players in the religion’s rise and fall through the ages, from Jesus himself to Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther, Francis Xavier, John Wesley, and even the Beatles, who claimed to be “more popular than Jesus.” Blainey takes us into the world of Christian worshipers through the ages—from housewives to stonemasons—and traces the rise of the critics of Christ and his followers. Eminently readable, and written with Blainey’s characteristic curiosity and storytelling skill, this book often places Christianity at the center of world history. Will it remain near the center? Blainey’s narrative illustrates that Christianity’s history is a much-repeated story of ups and downs.