Archaeology in Israel is truly a national obsession‎,‎ a practice through which national identity—and national rights—have long been asserted‎.‎ But how and why did archaeology emerge as such a pervasive force there‎?‎ How can the practices of archaeology help answer those questions‎?‎ In this stirring book‎,‎ Nadia Abu El‎-Haj addresses these questions and specifies for the first time the relationship between national ideology‎,‎ colonial settlement‎,‎ and the production of historical knowledge‎.‎ She analyzes particular instances of history‎,‎ artifacts‎,‎ and landscapes in the making to show how archaeology helped not only to legitimize cultural and political visions but‎,‎ far more powerfully‎,‎ to reshape them‎.‎ Moreover‎,‎ she places Israeli archaeology in the context of the broader discipline to determine what unites the field across its disparate local traditions and locations‎.‎ Boldly uncovering an Israel in which science and politics are mutually constituted‎,‎ this book shows the ongoing role that archaeology plays in defining the past‎,‎ present‎,‎ and future of Palestine and Israel‎.‎