"Sinanoglou has found an important way to intervene in the literature. This book will appeal not only to historians of Palestine, but also to scholars working more broadly on partition, decolonization, and the end of the British Empire."

Arab Studies Quarterly

"Penny Sinanoglou takes us back to the genesis of the partition concept in her new book, which is the most significant study to date of British policy on partition under the Palestine Mandate. . . . The account offered in Partitioning Palestine is illuminating and draws worthy attention to the haphazard qualities of Britain’s overall management of Palestine."

International Journal of Middle East Studies

"At its core, Penny Sinanoglou’s Partitioning Palestine: British Policymaking at the End of Empire is a study of partition as it relates to the Palestine Mandate. Sinanoglou traces the history of British partition planning from informal conversations among policymakers in the 1920s and 1930s through its public emergence in the form of the 1937 Peel Report and the various plans that followed, culminating in the 1947 UN Partition Plan. . . . Partitioning Palestine easily finds its niche in the vast scholarship pertaining to the territorial division of Israel and Palestine. . . . Sinanoglou produces a valuable work with relevance beyond the geographic constraints of Palestine. . . . Partitioning Palestine would well serve any student looking to delve into history of the Palestine Mandate beyond the treatment typical of a standard survey while also providing enough nuance that experienced scholars will find its content relevant to more advanced research endeavors. . . . The end result is a book with relevance to a wide range of scholars, particularly those concerned with the modern Middle East or questions of empire in the twentieth century at large."

The Middle Ground Journal

“An even-handed and meticulous study of the British role in the making and unmaking of Palestine during the interwar years. It is as much a book about the processes of decolonization and the end of empire as it is about the failed attempt to divide the Palestine mandate into two distinct nations under the influence of the British empire. By exploring the failures of partition, Sinanoglou convincingly argues that it is impossible to understand the politics of nationalism in the Middle East without considering imperial and internationalist concerns, which often overlapped in sometimes surprising ways.”

Michelle Tusan, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

“This important study retraces the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict, reframing it in the contexts of the interwar international order and British imperial policy. By showing that plans to partition Palestine were part of a wider late-imperial strategy to manage ethnic conflict, Sinanoglou provides essential insights into the origins of one of the modern world’s most intractable problems.”

Dane Kennedy, author of The Imperial History Wars: Debating the British Empire

“Sinanoglou has written a clear and compelling account of the events of the 1930s that led to a British ‘conceptual blueprint’ for Palestine’s partition. Her book is an indispensable case study of the complexity of national self-determination in the Middle East.”

Wm. Roger Louis, University of Texas at Austin

“Meticulously researched and elegantly presented, Partitioning Palestine offers a bold intervention in the field, revealing partition’s exceptional and nonlinear historical voyage. A must-read for students of the modern Middle East and twentieth-century empire and decolonization, Partitioning Palestine offers not only much-needed historical context but also serves as a cautionary tale for future policymakers.”

Arie M. Dubnov, George Washington University

“While there is a vast literature about the 1948 partition of Palestine, Sinanoglou has added a dimension seldom, if at all, explored by others. . . . An important contribution to understanding the events of that period.”

P. Clawson | Choice