"The 1948 war led to the creation of the state of Israel, to the fragmentation of Palestine, and to a conflict which has raged across the intervening sixty years. The historical debate also continues and these debates are encapsulated in the essays contained in a second edition of The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, updated to include chapters on Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. In a preface to the new edition, the editors survey the state of scholarship in this contested field. The fragmentation of the Israeli "New Historians" and the continued unwillingness of Arab societies to engage critically with their own past constrain the field, while new research opportunities are opened through private papers and oral history.

Previous ed.: 2001. Includes maps of: Mandate Palestine; United Nations Partition Plan, 1947; Arab League Invasion Plan Compared with the Actual Invasion; Israel following the Arab-Israeli Armistices, 1949.

Palestinians and 1948 : the underlying causes of failure / Rashid Khalidi -- Revisiting the Palestinian exodus of 1948 / Benny Morris -- Druze and the birth of Israel / Laila Parsons -- Israel and the Arab coalition in 1948 / Avi Shlaim -- Jordan and 1948 : the persistence of an official history / Eugene L. Rogan -- Iraq and the 1948 War : mirror of Iraq's disorder / Charles Tripp -- Egypt and the 1948 War : internal conflict and regional ambition / Fawaz A. Gerges -- Syria and the Palestine War : fighting King `Abdullah's "Greater Syria plan" / Joshua Landis -- Collusion across the Litani?: Lebanon and the 1948 war / Matthew Hughes -- Saudi Arabia and the 1948 Palestine war: beyond the official history / Madawi Al-Rasheed -- Afterword : the consequences of 1948 / Edward W. Said.