Salim Tamari is Professor of Sociology at Birzeit University, Palestine and Director of the Institute of Jerusalem Studies.

"Essay after essay is enriched with arresting descriptions, illuminating anecdotes and intriguing details... An erudite and original contribution to the history of the Middle East and an inspiring and enjoyable piece of scholarship." Times Higher Ed Supp (Thes) "A strong contribution to scholarship on Jerusalem in English." Middle East Journal

• List of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: Palestine's Conflictual Modernity 2. The Mountain against the Sea? Cultural Wars of the Eastern Mediterranean 3. From Emma Bovary to Hasan al-Banna: Small Towns and Social Control 4. Bourgeois Nostalgia and the Abandoned City 5. A Musician's Lot: The Jawhariyyeh Memoirs as a Key to Jerusalem's Early Modernity 6. Lepers, Lunatics, and Saints: The Nativist Ethnography of Tawfiq Canaan and His Circle 7. Sultana and Khalil: The Origins of Romantic Love in Palestine 8. The Last Feudal Lord 9. Ishaq Shami and the Predicament of the Arab Jew in Palestine 10. The Enigmatic Bolshevik from the Holy City 11. The Vagabond Cafe and Jerusalem's Prince of Idleness Notes Bibliography Index