Side by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine -- Sami Adwan

<p><strong>A groundbreaking "dual narrative" history of Israel and Palestine which offers a new paradigm for the teaching of history in conflict and post-conflict situations</strong></p> <p><strong>"The battle lines of the Israel-Palestinian conflict extend to the classroom, where the two sides' versions of their shared history diverge sharply. Now, two university professors aim to change the way the conflict is taught by exposing Palestinian students to Israeli history lessons and Israeli students to the Palestinian version of history." --<em>USA Today</em></strong></p> <p> More than twenty years ago, in the midst of widespread violence in Israel and Palestine, a group of Israeli and Palestinian teachers gathered to address what, to many people, seemed an unbridgeable gulf between the two societies. Struck by how different the standard Israeli and Palestinian textbook histories of the same events were from one another--whether of the Balfour Declaration or the 1967 War--they began to explore how a new understanding of history itself might open up different kinds of dialogue in an increasingly hostile climate. Their express goal was to "disarm" the teaching of Middle East history in Israeli and Palestinian classrooms.</p> <p>The result is a riveting and unprecedented "dual narrative" of Israeli and Palestinian history. <em>Side by Side</em> comprises the history of two peoples, in separate narratives set literally side by side, so that readers can track each against the othe