Gaza: A History
Jean-Pierre Filiu
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From the publisher
Winner of the Middle East Monitor Palestine Book Award and a Guardian Book of the Year
The story of the struggle to control Gaza, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.
Through its millennium-long existence, Gaza has often been bitterly disputed, yet enduringly neglected. Squeezed between the Negev and Sinai deserts and the Mediterranean Sea, Gaza was contested by everyone from the Pharaohs, Persians, Greeks and Romans to the Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans and British. And, since 1948, Gaza has been at the heart of Palestinian nationalism and history.
Filiu’s book was the first comprehensive history of Gaza to be published in any language. This new, updated edition covers events since 2011, including Gaza’s renewed tragic centrality to world politics and security since the events of October 2023: history’s worst attack on Israel, provoking history’s worst war against the Palestinians.
‘This history ranks as a masterpiece in the literature of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It tells the facts, explains both sides of the coin and leaves readers to draw their conclusions. … An excellent but sobering book.’ — Michael Sheridan, The Sunday Times
‘Goes back far beyond the conflict that’s shaped [Gaza] over the last century.’ — Los Angeles Times
‘Jean-Pierre Filiu’s authoritative and well-sourced history of Gaza from earliest times to the end of 2011 fills a serious gap. Even those who know Gaza well will find much in this book to enlighten them.’ — The Independent
‘A magnificent piece of historical writing: clear in its exposition, careful in its use of a treasure-trove of new sources and judicious in its analysis of competing political claims to this small and troubled strip of land. It is difficult to see how it will ever be rivalled in terms of scope, intensity and sympathetic understanding.’ — Roger Owen, Emeritus Professor of Middle East History, Harvard University
‘Jean-Pierre Filiu tells the story of Gaza’s modern political history in impressive detail.’ — David Shulman, New York Review of Books