Thus, today I'm recommending The Palestinian People: A History, an absolutely remarkable history of the Palestinians stretching from the mid-19th century through the post-Oslo era, by Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal.

A people is always more than its most recent headline, and here, Kimmerling and Migdal delve deeply and compellingly into all that has brought the Palestinian people to 21st century, from a little-known proto-nationalist revolt against Egypt in 1834, through the 1936-1939 general strike against the British (which ultimately weakened the Palestinians far more than anyone else), to 1948 and what the authors call "the shattering of the Palestinian people," through the new reality of Palestinians living in Israel, and in those lands occupied by Israel in 1967.

The occupation quickly became the defining characteristic of Palestinian life, and Migdal and Kimmerling parse what this meant socially, economically, and politically for millions of people attempting to move ahead with their lives in circumstances almost entirely beyond their control. The first intifada erupted in response to these pressures, powered by a never-defeated sense of peoplehood, growing since the 1834 revolt.

Initially a genuine grassroots revolt, the late 1980s uprising created real hardship for the Palestinians, but also "stands as the pre-eminent event in the Palestinians' recent history, galvanizing a sense of community and nationhood."

"But like its predecessor the Arab Revolt of 1936-39," Kimmerling and Migdal add, "it [exposed] rifts corresponding to this greatly heightened sense of unified purpose."

The Fatah-Hamas hostility is rooted in those rifts, a divide that only grew through the Oslo process which, the authors say, had several good outcomes - such as Israel and the Palestinians "recognizing the other as a nation with a collective understanding of its own right to a state" - but was ultimately doomed by the weaknesses of, and power imbalance between, the two peoples, "leading to a frontloading of benefits for Israelis [recognition, security cooperation] and the backloading of benefits for Palestinians [a sovereign state, an end to settlements]."

Once Israel had the basics of what it had demanded, it was far too easy to let all the difficulties and on-going hosilities get in the way of what Palestinians were still waiting for -- and as a result, Palestinian economic conditions actually worsened, and the settlement project actually grew, under what was meant to be the dawn of a brighter tomorrow. Under these circumstances, it was perhaps inevitable that Oslo would fall apart spectacularly and a new intifada erupt - all of which, in turn, have led to the harsh reality that exists between Israel and the Palestinians today.

The authors don't absolve anyone of their guilt in the violence, but by writing an entirely accessible, fascinating work that posits the Palestinian people as a fully rounded society - an actual people, not the figment of someone else's romantic or angry imagination - Migdal and Kimmerling provide an invaluable service, both to the Palestinians themselves, and anyone who might one day want to live with them in peace.

Emily L. Hauser is an American-Israeli  freelance writer who has studied and written about the contemporary Middle East since the early 1990s, and is an active member of a Chicago-area Conservative congregation. She blogs at Emily L. Hauser In My Head and can be followed on Twitter. She also crossposts at Angry Black Lady Chronicles (despite being only an Angry Lady and not at all Black) and atheist-interfaith blog NonProphet Status. All recommendations are entirely her own.