Edited by the Palestinian scholar Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, The Transformation of Palestine was one of the first major English-language scholarly collections to present the Palestinian perspective on the history of the conflict.

Contributors including Walid Khalidi, Hisham Sharabi, Arnold Toynbee and Albert Hourani examine Palestine under the Ottomans, British colonial policy, Zionist colonisation, the events of 1948 and the expulsion of the Palestinians, and the emergence of the Palestinian resistance. The book helped establish the field of Palestine studies in the West.