
This book is an attempt at a critical-optical examination of 7 photographic albums collected and arranged by a Jerusalemite, Wasif Jawhariyya (1904-1972) under the title The Illustrated History of Palestine. These albums contain some 900 photographs that display the rich cultural and political environment in Palestine in the late Ottoman and the British Mandate periods. The three authors, Nassar, Sheehi and Tamari, regard this archive as a turning point where the history of photography in the Arab world intersects with Palestine’s social history. By highlighting a novel interpretation of this seminal period, the book’s authors trace not solely the principal historical events and the shapes of urban life but also a social vision of the life of the Palestinian people as exemplified by Jerusalem society. By tracing the interplay between the photographs, the authors offer evidence for continuity in the field of material, historical and societal patterns as between the living past of Arab Palestine and its living present.