Nusseibeh, scion of a family that holds the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, an Oxford- and Harvard-trained philosopher, president of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, provides an insider's account of Palestine's complicated history since the catastrophe, the al-nakbah of 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced by the emerging Israeli state. An early advocate of a two-state solution, Nusseibeh tells a story that is at once informative, heart-rending, and humane.