Book excerpt: "Illuminating. . . . The entire field of modern Middle Eastern Studies still has remarkably little closely researched social history of this sort. Beinin's study adds to the work recently published by revisionist Israeli historians, debunking the dominant view of the origin and early history of the Palestine conflict and extending the revision into the 1950s and early 1960s. His explanation of the different political paths that were taken, turned back from, and lost sight of is an important—indeed vital—contribution to contemporary scholarly and political understanding."—Timothy Mitchell, New York University