This open access book investigates the transnationally connected history of Arab Christian
communities in Palestine during the British Mandate (1918-1948) through the lens of the birth
of cultural diplomacy. Relying predominantly on unpublished sources it examines the
relationship between European cultural agendas and local identity formation processes and
discusses the social and religious transformations of Arab Christian communities in Palestine
via cultural lenses from an entangled perspective. The 17 chapters reflect diverse research
interests from case studies of individual archives to chapters that question the concept of
cultural diplomacy more generally. They illustrate the diversity of scholarship that enables a
broad-based view of how cultural diplomacy functioned during the interwar period but also the
ways in which its meanings have changed. The book considers British Mandate Palestine as an
internationalized node within a transnational framework to understand how the complexity of
cultural interactions and agencies engaged to produce new modes of modernity.
