Book of the Year - Bradt's Palestine

Green Left Weekly asked me to contribute to a list of books of the year. I chose the Bradt Travel Guide for Palestine, which I found an invaluable resource in getting around and knowing how to handle the regime's attempts to deter international solidarity (or even basic functioning of the tourist economy).


Palestine by Sarah Irving
Bradt Travel Guides, 2011
This is the ideal resource for Palestinian solidarity activists and travellers in the Holy Land. The best book of its kind, it delivers a frank and honest picture of Palestine when the vast majority of tourist literature is an accomplice to the erasure of Palestinian history and culture.
As the author states in the introduction, "to visit Palestine is, in some measure, a political act" even for conventional tourists.
The guide's background information section pulls no punches regarding the creation of Israel and the occupation of '67. It's also one of the only guides available that also covers Palestinian communities inside Israel. This is the only book worth reading for travellers to Palestine, whether interested in solidarity activism or not.