For thousands of years, Palestine and the East Mediterranean have been subject to constant colonial interference which has denied the indigenous population an independent, authentic historical narrative. Basem L. Ra'ad uncovers this history and begins the process of reconnecting it to contemporary peoples. Perceptions of the region have been influenced by the operation of 'Western civilisation' and by many other inherited cultural-religious preconceptions. The region itself has been disenfranchised and prevented from developing its own comprehensive cultural history. Ra'ad's findings are an important step towards reconstructing an alternative history, one which dispels many of the myths and traps relating to religions, languages, peoples and sites. This highly original work is an essential text for students of Middle Eastern history, politics and culture.

Contents: 1. Canaan Nails (title from the name of a nail-manicure salon in Long Island; on terminologies for regions, periods, peoples, ancient and modern; euphemisms; perceptions; paradigms at work; peculiarities, significance of certain landscapes); 2. sun moon stars rain (ee cummings' poem; sources of past/present mythologies; meaning of deserts, stones, vegetation; transformed myths, ancient and modern); 3. Which is the First Monotheism? (the evolution of religions in the Eastern Mediterranean; monolatry; links to / sources in earlier polytheisms; key discoveries and epigraphic cruxes; El and Yahweh; creation of sacred sites); 4. Ugarit (the city discovered in 1928; on its importance to knowledge, history); 5. Last of the Phoenicians (a lecture title; how scholarship serves system; fallacies; real and imagined continuity; identity construction; "consciousness" paradox); 6. 'Asqalan and Ashkelon (on toponyms, linguistic transmission, and linguistic politics; a new theory of how ancient names relate to present ones); 7. Bottles and Cans (how misled names are accepted; self-colonization, its symptoms, and dangers); 8. A Film I Should Make (on Younis/Eunus: the first slave revolt against Rome; strange discoveries; on elisions in history writing; civilization paradigms; subliminal messages in Hollywood films); 9. Their Letters Are In This Text (on the alphabet; evolution; scholarly agendas); 10. Cats of Jerusalem (how cats in the city reflect the human environment); 11. Serendipities (on clairvoyance and the "prophetic"); 12. What He Says on the Cross (explication and conjecture on Christ's sentence recorded in Aramaic; implications; interpretation of the Christ phenomenon); 13. Ya Latif (a common expression and one of the titles of Allah, also the ancient chief god El; episodes relating present life, customs, language, to the distant past); 14. Pears and Miramiyya (wild fruits and herbs; what has been lost and what remains of the natural).

Basem L. Ra'ad is a Professor at Al-Quds University, Jerusalem. Born in Jerusalem, he received his education in Jordan, Lebanon, the U. S. and Canada, earning a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in 1978. He has been an editor and community organiser, and taught in various countries, including Canada, Bahrain and Lebanon