Electrical Palestine - by Fredrik Meiton (Paperback)

About the Book

"Like electricity, political power travels through physical materials whose properties govern its flow. Electrical Palestine charts the construction of Palestine's electric grid in the interwar period and its implication in the area's rapid and uneven development. It does so in an effort to rethink both the origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and the interplay of politics, capital, and technology more broadly. The study follows the co-evolution of the power system and Zionist state-building efforts in Palestine on the conceptual and material level. Conceptually, the design and construction of the system shaped Palestine as a precisely bounded entity with a distinct political, social, and economic character. Materially, the borders of the mandate were mapped onto the power system and structured an ethno-national division of capital, land, and labor. In 1948, these co-evolving forces ultimately carried over into Jewish statehood and Palestinian statelessness"--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Electricity is an integral part of everyday life--so integral that we rarely think of it as political. In Electrical Palestine, Fredrik Meiton illustrates how political power, just like electrical power, moves through physical materials whose properties govern its flow. At the dawn of the Arab-Israeli conflict, both kinds of power were circulated through the electric grid that was built by the Zionist engineer Pinhas Rutenberg in the period of British rule from 1917 to 1948. Drawing on new sources in Arabic, Hebrew, and several European languages, Electrical Palestine charts a story of rapid and uneven development that was greatly influenced by the electric grid and set the stage for the conflict between Arabs and Jews. Electrification, Meiton shows, was a critical element of Zionist state building. The outcome in 1948, therefore, of Jewish statehood and Palestinian statelessness was the result of a logic that was profoundly conditioned by the power system, a logic that has continued to shape the area until today.

From the Back Cover

"In this stimulating and provocative book, Fredrik Meiton provides a new explanation for the success of Zionism and the failure of Arab resistance in Mandate Palestine. His demonstrations of the symbiosis between colonial politics and technology sharpens our understanding of not only Israel and Palestine but also postcolonial states throughout the globe."--Derek J. Penslar, Harvard University

"Meiton shows that Zionism was far more than a political or national project, and that what he terms its 'technocapitalist underpinnings' were crucial to its conquest of the country and dispossession of the Palestinians. This is a shrewd, erudite study that enriches our understanding of a crucial element in the struggle over Palestine."--Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies, Columbia University, and author of The Hundred Years' War on Palestine

"Meiton provides an electrifying tour through the process of state-building that turned Palestine into Israel. This is a critical book for anyone interested in Palestine or Israel today, as well as for those interested in the global politics of technology and capitalism or imperialism and the modern state."-- Marwa Elshakry, author of Reading Darwin in Arabic

Review Quotes

"Meiton makes a major contribution to exposing the inherent political nature of infrastructure and approaching perennial ethnic opposition via an STS framework."

-- "Technology and Culture"

"Fredrik Meiton's meticulous history of electrification in the British Mandate of Palestine, and its vast implications for Israel and the Palestinians, provides an important intervention in the history of the region by illuminating the role of technology in shaping the political reality."-- "The Middle East Journal"

"Meiton has written an elegant and original history of mandatory Palestine."-- "Journal of Interdisciplinary History"

"The dispossession of Palestinians is...discussed as a result of capitalist and technological development which in turn shaped societal dynamics and contributed to the first manifestations of inequality between Jewish settlers and the indigenous Palestinians."-- "Middle East Monitor"

About the Author

Fredrik Meiton is Assistant Professor of History at the University of New Hampshire.