This original and deeply provocative book was the first to make Palestine the subject of a serious debate - one that remains as critical as ever. With the rigorous scholarship he brought to his influentialOrientalismand an exile's passion (he is Palestinian by birth), Edward Said traces the fatal collision between two peoples in the Middle East and its repercussions in the lives of both the occupier and the occupied - as well as in the conscience of the West. For anyone interested in this region and its future,The Question of Palestineremains the most useful and authoritative account available.