The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty

Ilan Pappe, renowned Israeli historian and social activist, presents a spellbinding account of the Husayni family and the role they played throughout the modern history of Palestine. Viewed through the prism of one family, the book sheds new light on crucial events and provides an unforgettable picture of the Palestinian tragedy in its entirety.

In this exhaustive political biography, Ilan Pappe traces the rise of the Husayni family of Jerusalem, who dominated Palestinian history from the early 1700s until the second half of the twentieth century. Viewing this sweeping saga through the prism of one family, the book sheds new light on crucial events - the invasion of Palestine by Napoleon, the decline of the Ottoman Empire, World War I, western colonialism, and the advent of Zionism - and provides an unforgettable picture of the Palestinian tragedy in its entirety. The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty is the history of Palestinian politics before national movements and political parties. In telling the story of one family, the book reveals the continuity between periods customarily divided into pre-modern and modern, pre-Zionist and Zionist, illuminating history as it was actually lived.

Foreword 7 Introduction 11 Prologue 23
chapter 1 The Making of a Family: From al-Ghudayya to al-Husayni 33
chapter 2 In the Shadow of Acre and Cairo: The Third Generation 53
chapter 3 Struggling with Reform, 1840-76 78
chapter 4 The Death of the Old World : Towards the End of the Ottoman Era in Palestine 92
chapter 5 Facing the Young Turks: The Family as Bureaucratic Aristocracy 127
chapter 6 In the Shadow of British Military Rule: From the Politics of Notables to the Politics of Nationalism 160
chapter 7 British Betrayal and the Rise of the National Aristocracy: The First Violent Outbreak 188
chapter 8 The Grand Mufti and His Family: Al-Hajj Amin Elected Mufti 212
chapter 9 The Great Revolt: The Family as Revolutionary Aristocracy 246
chapter 10 The Family in Exile: The Husaynis and the Armed Revolt, 1937-8 283
chapter 11 World War II and the Nakbah: In the Midst of the Revolution in Iraq 304 Epilogue 342 Family Trees (1700-1948) 353 Endnotes 355 Bibliography 383 Index 393