Healing the Land and the Nation

Malaria and the Zionist Project in Palestine, 1920-1947

Cloth $42.50 ISBN: 9780226779355 Published December 2007

E-book $7.00 to $34.00 About E-books ISBN: 9780226779386 Published November 2008

A novel inquiry into the sociopolitical dimensions of public medicine, Healing the Land and the Nation traces the relationships between disease, hygiene, politics, geography, and nationalism in British Mandatory Palestine between the world wars. Taking up the case of malaria control in Jewish-held lands, Sandra Sufian illustrates how efforts to thwart the disease were intimately tied to the project of Zionist nation-building, especially the movement’s efforts to repurpose and improve its lands. The project of eradicating malaria also took on a metaphorical dimension—erasing anti-Semitic stereotypes of the “parasitic” Diaspora Jew and creating strong, healthy Jews in Palestine. Sufian shows that, in reclaiming the land and the health of its people in Palestine, Zionists expressed key ideological and political elements of their nation-building project.

Taking its title from a Jewish public health mantra, Healing the Land and the Nation situates antimalarial medicine and politics within larger colonial histories. By analyzing the science alongside the politics of Jewish settlement, Sufian addresses contested questions of social organization and the effects of land reclamation upon the indigenous Palestinian population in a decidedly innovative way. The book will be of great interest to scholars of the Middle East, Jewish studies, and environmental history, as well as to those studying colonialism, nationalism, and public health and medicine.

Review Quotes
Contents

“Sandra Sufian’s Healing the Land and the Nation is a major contribution to the mutual history of the Arabs and Jews in the decades before the founding of the State of Israel. Sufian’s careful and measured presentation of a moment in their interaction as seen from both Jewish and Arab sources is also a case study of joint collaboration as well as mutual distrust, of common principles understood differently by each party, of the inherent contradictions that continue to underlie the present-day Middle East.”—Sander L. Gilman, Emory University

“A striking examination of public health in an extraordinary context of colonization and nation building.”—Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University

“This fascinating book opens up new perspectives on the history of Palestine and the politics of public health. An iconic element in the Zionist project in Palestine, the program to eradicate malaria transformed human bodies, ecological landscapes, and collective futures. Sufian has written a powerful and persuasive account of these intersecting histories.”—Tim Mitchell, New York University

“Healing the Land and the Nation is a truly innovative and exciting history of the coproduction of a healthy environment, healthy bodies, and the modern settler nation-state. Sufian studies this exceptionally fraught and controversial colonial site with exemplary balance and sensitivity.”—Warwick Anderson, University of Wisconsin–Madison

“Sandra Sufian’s new book is a meticulous and eye-opening piece of scholarship. It reveals that the Zionist project of draining the swamps of Palestine was not merely an inspiring myth but also a methodical, scientific effort to heal the ‘pathological landscape’ of that country. In this sense, Sufian offers a genuinely new perspective on the Zionist attempts to ‘incorporate’ the Jewish nation and lay claim to Palestine. Her book will be read with great profit by students of Middle Eastern history, the history of medicine, and Jewish history among many other fields.”—David N. Myers, University of California, Los Angeles

"A fascinating book that clearly demonstates the complex and important connections between disease, health, politics, and national mythology."—Nancy Gallagher, H-Net Review

"Healing the Land is an academic exploration of a hitherto underresearched topic of historical and geographical significance and therefore makes an important contribution to the scholarship. . . . [It] is a pleasure to read . . . both because it is beautifully writen and because it establishes its relevance to modern-day Israel. . . . Healing the Land will be of great interest to students and scholars of medical history, colonial history, and historical geograpjhy."

Contents

List of Figures and Tables
List of Measures and Currency
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION A History of Malaria and Zionist Nationalism in Mandatory Palestine
CHAPTER 1. Archetypal Landscape: Healing the Land and the Nation in the Zionist Imagination

I. Draining the Swamp to Heal the Land
CHAPTER 2. Pathological Landscape: Epidemiology and Medical Geography of Malaria in Palestine
CHAPTER 3. Potential Landscape: Swamp Drainage Projects and the Politics of Settlement
CHAPTER 4. Technological Landscape: The Jezreel Valley and the Huleh Valley Projects
CHAPTER 5. Perceptual Landscape: Scientific Experimentation, Colonial Medicine and the Medicalization of Palestine

II. Fighting Malaria to Heal the Jewish Nation
CHAPTER 6. Cultural Landscape: Creating a Culture of Health through Antimalaria Education
CHAPTER 7. Contested Landscape: Arab-Jewish Conflict and Cooperation in Antimalaria Projects
CONCLUSION Ecological Landscape: Old Paradigms, New Meanings

Bibliography
Index

For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu

History: Middle Eastern History

History of Science

Jewish Studies

Medical Science

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