5The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Contested Histories provides non-specialist readers with an introduction and historical overview of the issues that have characterized and defined 130 years of the still unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

• Provides a fresh attempt to break away from polemical approaches that have undermined academic discussion and political debates
• Focuses on a series of core arguments that the author considers essentially unwinnable
• Introduces readers to the major historiographical debates sparked by the dispute
• Encourages readers to consider more useful ways of explaining and understanding the conflict, and to go beyond trying to prove who is 'right' and 'wrong'

"This volume suggests a fresh and original interpretation to the history of the Arab Israeli conflict. Caplan juggles skillfully and even-handedly between the two narratives, reflecting the parties' own views without embracing the cause of any party."
-Joseph Nevo, University of Haifa

"An impressive and very valuable work. One could not ask for a better short history of the conflict. Caplan offers readers a study that is extremely well-informed, resolutely fair-minded, and filled with thoughtful insights."
-Mark Tessler, University of Michigan