Rosemarie M. Esber is a researcher and writer with degrees from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

and

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

with a background in the history, culture, and economy of the Middle East and North Africa. Her published work is centered on Arab oral history. She has served as a consultant to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

, the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

, and the

International Finance Corporation The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private-sector development in less developed countries. The IFC is a member of ...

Palestine and their Nakba

One of the main focuses of Esber's work has been the Palestinian accounts of their evacuation from their homes on the cusp of the

Partition of Palestine The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Re ...

which they refer to as the

Nakba Clickable map of Mandatory Palestine with the depopulated locations during the 1947–1949 Palestine war. The Nakba ( ar, النكبة, translit=an-Nakbah, lit=the "disaster", "catastrophe", or "cataclysm"), also known as the Palestinian Ca ...

, or catastrophe. She is recognized for her book, ''Under the Cover of War: The Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians''. Of the book,

Nur Masalha Nur-eldeen (Nur) Masalha ( ar, نور مصالحة ''Nūr Maṣālḥa''; born 4 January 1957) is a Palestinian writer and academic. He is a historian of Palestine and formerly professor of religion and politics and director of the Centre for R ...

wrote, "Esber’s work both challenges and complements the archival historiography of 1948." Mustafa Kabha of

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

wrote in the

International Journal of Middle East Studies The ''International Journal of Middle East Studies'' is a scholarly journal published by the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), a learned society. See also * Middle East Research and Information Project * Association for ...

, "Esber contributes significantly in further elucidating the Palestinian narrative of 1948" while still applying critical analysis to it. For the book, she interviewed 126 Palestinians, men and women who evacuated in 1948 and 1949 and found refuge in

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

and

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

Arab Americans in the Southern United States

Esber won the 2012-13 Charlton Oral History Research Grant from

Baylor University Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of the ...

for her proposal "Arab Americans in the Southern United States". Her aim is to contrast the perception that diversity is an inherently Northern urban phenomenon by documenting three waves of Arab immigration to America which began as early as the 1880s.

Published works

Books

*''War and Arab displacement in Mandate Palestine, 29 November 1947 to 15 May 1948'' (2004,

) *''Under the Cover of War: The Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians'' (2008, Arabicus Books)

Articles

''The Poet-King of Seville''
(January 1993, Saudi Aramco World) *''The 1948 Palestinian Arab Exodus from Haifa'' (2003, Arab World Geographer) *''Mainstreaming Gender in Selected HIV/AIDS Interventions in World Bank Operations in Africa.'' (December 2004, Review for World Bank Poverty Reduction Management & Gender Division (PRMGE))
''Rewriting The History of 1948: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Question Revisited''
(May 2005, Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Esber, Rosemarie 21st-century American women writers American people of Lebanese descent Historians of the Middle East Historians of the Southern United States Writers from Virginia Writers from Minnesota American women historians Alumni of SOAS University of London Living people 21st-century American historians American expatriates in England 21st-century American non-fiction writers Year of birth missing (living people)