The Crime of Nationalism. Matthew Kraig Kelly

The Palestinian national movement gestated in the early decades of the twentieth century, but it was born during the Great Revolt of 1936&ndash;39, a period of Arab rebellion against British policy in the Palestine mandate. In <I>The Crime of Nationalism,</I> Matthew Kraig Kelly makes the unique case that the key to understanding the Great Revolt lies in what he calls the &ldquo;crimino-national&rdquo; domain&mdash;the overlap between the criminological and the nationalist dimensions of British imperial discourse, and the primary terrain upon which the war of 1936&ndash;39 was fought. Kelly&rsquo;s analysis amounts to a new history of one of the major anticolonial insurgencies of the interwar period and a critical moment in the lead-up to Israel&rsquo;s founding. <I>The Crime of Nationalism</I>&#160;offers crucial lessons for the scholarly understanding of nationalism and insurgency more broadly.