Scholarly, unbiased, thoughtful argument touching on a highly explosive, emotionally charged issue, nationhood. Insightful and courageous thinking. Explores how groups come to define themselves and suggests how distinctions and divisions among "tribes" of humans are created and promoted. Very interesting!

Scholarly, unbiased, thoughtful argument touching on a highly explosive, emotionally charged issue, nationhood. Insightful and courageous thinking. Explores how groups come to define themselves and suggests how distinctions and divisions among "tribes" of humans are created and promoted. Very interesting!

Yech, I just read the 'The New Yorker' article on how hard-done-by this scholar is because of the pro-Israel lobby. Weep into your six figure salary.

I didn't dislike this book because I have some cherished memory of working on a kibbutz when I was sixteen. I'm not rolling my eyes because I'm a bible/tanakh believing Person of Faith, for whom this book was an insult to my treasury of psalmic images. Not at all. What annoys me is how philosophers are now pretending to be social scientists -- blowing hard at the biases of the other, while generously milking their own.

This book's debt to Foucault and Said is obvious, and the template is well worn. Nothing original here in terms of formulation: the author begins with an indictment and then proves it with every word. Conclusions are now contained in the preface. (I blame the culture of Grant/Fellowship hunters for this one).

Nation/people/collectivity/history = political construct. Predictable strategy. 'Nations' are nothing more than a composite sketch of ideological madmen who will falsify a body of authentic knowledge to suit their purposes. Tradition? Illusion. Heritage? Romanticised trinkets. Archaeology? Figments. The connections between 'past' and 'presents' are forgeries, in which collective memory -- trapped in the here and now -- gropes in the dark of ersatz evidence.

Now of course it's easy (and academically expedient) to target 'Israel' with such a critique. Finkelstein has shown us that those snapshots of grim horror from Auschwitz are ripe and ready for mere sentimentality as well.

I'm just wondering . . . is anyone going to try this stunt with the Lakota or Cherokee? Has anyone come along yet and said -- sorry, my 'native american' friend, but your claims to a continuity with the land are an imaginary construct . . . a discursive formulation of ethnic selfhood. It sounds really good, but it's completely conjured up out of pottery shards and nameless bones. Try it. See what kind of response you get.

And "Palestine" isn't just as much a product of violent ideologies, enforced senses of community through religious pressure and social groupthink . . . not to mention an unhealthy fabrication of identity grafted onto history? I buy your argument. Sure -- the ruins of Masada, and their historical associations, have been used to create modern Israeli myths of resistant nationalism. I agree.

And, uh, Paslestinians can lay claim to al-Aqsa mosque because of a vague reference in the Qur'an? As if this isn't some loosey-goosey archaeology of knowledge -- that some guy (er, Noble and Most Sublime Prophet) called Muhammad floated through the night sky and ended up in Jerusalem one night? As if even their preferred name for Jerusalem, 'al-Quds', is not also a product of histiographic nostalgia? How about this: the only reason Jerusalem even registers in the Arab imagination of the past was because of its trophy value in conquest; its trade route marketability; and now because that golden dome generates kamikaze-like enthusiasm. There. A nice bit of architecture to be sure, but also an "archaeological practice" that "self-fashions" a society.

Come on. Play the theory, but don't play it blind.

But, with Israel, it's a good way to get tenure. Especially at Columbia. That's what I see here. At least Ilan Pappe, who I think does a much better job at the issues of how culture overwrites topography, has an ethical mandate. This whole book to me just stank of a carreerist agenda.

What bothers me the most about this work is how flimsy social theory, culled from French philosophy of the 1960s, passes off as 'research'. It's not. Archaeology should be done by archaeologists, not literary critics. Ilan Pappe's work is so damning and effective because it ruthlessly pursues the historical record on Israel's self-conception. This book is just tired post-structuralist theory, foisted along a well-worn path. As the author reminds us in the "New Yorker" -- she had to turn grants and funding down, so flush with money to write this stuff.

So don't worry. As I've heard, all the archaeological remains under the Temple Mount are being destroyed as we speak. But weep not -- just nameless bits of stone.

This is an amazing book that should be taught in every relevant course! As an archaeologist, I found it impeccably researched, well-written and indispensable. A must-read for those who are committed to rigorous scholarship as opposed to political agendas. What is most remarkable about this eye-opening book is the disciplined and highly sophisticated methodology in utilizing original sources in order to interrogate the construction of historical identity. The author masterfully examines the process of legitimization and transformation of land attachment into an ideological or religious attachment. This book will be required reading for my graduate and also advanced undergraduate students.

What's next?.
"Aristotle the arab muslim" or " The writings of Prophet Plato (Peace Be Upon Him)".
You can mark the stages of the American academy's decline by the resurrection of Noam Chomsky, the ascension of Edward Said, the introduction of Norman Finkelstein and the tenure of Nadia Abu El-Hadj.

This is a book which should never have been published.
This work is an effort to completely erase the historical connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. It ignores the established historical record to spin a fantasy tale which in effect fits in with the whole Islamist effort to eliminate the Jewish connection with the Holy Land. It also ignores the work of generations of archaeological work done in the field.
It is not a work of scholarship but rather a work which flies in the face of all respected scholarship in the field.
A disgrace.

The politicization of archaeology--like every other discipline--is not new and El-Haj makes a thoroughly professional and expert comment on the political uses and abuses of Israeli archaeology. Highly recommended!

Politically driven drivel by non-tenured semi-amateur Palestinian.
"Facts on the ground" from someone who NEVER bothered to visit Israel or Palestine? How naive...
And the most unforgiving sin: tedious to an extreme, as most theses are. At least the editor took removed the APA format.

As an avid amateur archeologist, I read this book to gain insight into the current situation of unearthing the past in Palestine. The author presented several intriguing ideas, such as the desire of immigrants who never had any contact with this "new-old land" to establish a legitimacy entitling them to be part of the region. Such insights as the naming of Tel Aviv (from Arabic words for "mound" and "spring") and the excavations of the Temple site shed light on the process of the creation of the myth of a new nation. Indeed, the immigrants, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, had been schooled in the process of using the past to justify their nationhood. I highly recommend this text for anyone interested in a new and daring view of the material. There are some critics who have launched a campaign to discredit the author because of her temerity in analyzing most objectively the politics of mythification via archeology. No one should be discouraged from reading "Facts on the Ground" by such obvious would-be-silencers of what they consider to be a taboo topic.

Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition by Yael Zerubavel discusses the construction of memory and the invention of traditions in Mandatory Palestine and in the State of Israel. The book describes some unusual Israeli or Zionist practices associated with Masada and Bar Kochba archeological excavations.

Rather like Nadia Abu el Haj in Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, Zerubavel describes the use of archeology and other scholarship to construct Zionist national identity.

Other scholars have investigated the political use of archeology in various contexts. Not only Max Weinreich and Eric Hobsbawm provide similar analysis in their published works, but Constructing "Korean" Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State Formation Theories by Hyung Il Pai addresses precisely that same issues with regard to the development of Korean national consciousness.

Even though Abu el Haj focuses more narrowly on professional archeologists whereas Zerubavel looks at Israeli society as a whole, both authors make similar points in their books, and Zerubavel provides support for some of the claims for which Nadia Abu el Haj has been most criticized.

Zerubavel received the 1996 Salo Baron Prize of the American Academy for Jewish Research for her work while Nadia Abu el Haj is the target of an international campaign to drive her out of Columbia/Barnard. The difference in the responses evoked by the two authors merits a scholarly study in itself.

This book is simply propaganda, dressed up as scholarship. It is about as far from academic honesty as you can get.