Government and society in rural Palestine, 1920-1948 /

Miller's tightly written and extensively researched study explores the evolving role of local administration in rural Palestine during the years of the British Mandate. He concentrates on the relationships of district officers and Mukhtars (village headmen) with both the central administration in Jerusalem and with village society. Miller uses sources in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. She relys heavily on British and Israeli archives as well as the minutes of the League of National Permanent Mandates Commission to throw light on the changing conditions of Palestinian villagers and peasants between 1920 and 1948. The chapter on rural education is especially revealing of internal inconsistencies in British policy, though it is flawed by insufficient attention to the impact on schooling of Palestinian population growth during those years. This work offers a deeper analysis than such well-known studies as Ann Mosely Lesch's Arab Politics in Palestine, 1917-1939 (CH, Apr '80), Yehoshua Porath's two works The Emergence of the Palestinian National Movement, 1918-1929 (London, 1974) and The Palestinian National Movement, 1929-1939 (v.2, 1977). Miller's book also complements Palestinian Society and Politics, ed. by Joel Migdal (CH, Oct '80) and Kenneth W. Stein's The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939 (CH, Dec '84). Graduate readership.-G.B. Doxsee, Ohio University