Author Basem Ra'ad

It is an irony that our region, which produced "civilization" ("the cradle of civilization"), has now become so embroiled in the very question of what is true and what is false. My book Hidden Histories aims to shift essential understandings by the West, as well as to broaden our own understandings within the region.

Much of history has been covered up or veiled by invention, is partial and distorted, written by the winner or the dominant mainstream. Vested interests blind us. Often Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean is a palimpsest-much has been hidden, paved over; whole towns and villages, even societies, reside below the surface. What was ignorance in the past is now designed deception.