Survey of Palestine, A.
Ralph Bunche’s Copy Of A
Foundational Document In The
Creation Of Israel
[Judaica]. A Survey of Palestine. Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. Palestine: Printed by the Government Printer, (April 1946).
2 vols.; wrappers, slightly used. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
First edition of this “Survey of Palestine,” a set of memoranda prepared by the Palestinian government for the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry to supplement “such readily accessible digests as the reports of the Royal Commission of 1937 and the Partition Commission of 1938”; published in an unspecified limited number “in response to the demand that [they] be made available to the public.” From the library of Dr. Ralph Bunche, the first Black statesman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for his efforts to resolve the Israeli war; with his initials on the covers of both volumes and an annotation of over three dozen words to volume one.
A prefatory letter by the Chief Secretary to the Government of Palestine sketches the history of the memoranda:
"The survey, while intended to cover in convenient form factual matter pertinent to examination of conditions in Palestine with special attention to subjects bearing on absorptive capacity, does not pretend to be exhaustive. This intention unavoidably entailed the application of a degree of selectivity, but the criterion applied, in addition to the rule of accuracy, has been the extent to which data are likely to be of assistance or interest to the Committee in following its terms of references, and no other principle."
Summarizing their inquiries into historical, geographical, financial, legal, social, agricultural, political, religious, and other conditions, A Survey includes corrections and/or deletions of statements or figures that were found to be “incorrect or liable to misinterpretation” in the original reports.
Ralph Bunche, grandson of a slave, was born in Detroit. His mother’s ill-health drove the family to the temperate environment of Albuquerque, where his father’s death followed his mother’s by three months. Only twelve, Bunche moved to Los Angeles to live with his maternal grandmother who, by instilling in him the virtues of pluck, self-reliance, and a love of learning, would become perhaps the greatest influence on his life.
Bunche graduated valedictorian of his high school class and earned a scholarship to UCLA, where he started as a guard on one of the nation’s top college basketball teams. After graduating summa cum laude, he received a master’s degree from Harvard, through a fellowship, and was soon invited to Howard University to head the newly formed political science department. However, Bunche was as often on leave as in residence. In 1931, he traveled in Europe and Africa on a Rosenwald Fellowship, publishing his prize-winning doctoral dissertation of French administration in Togoland and Dahomey. Five years later, a Social Science Research Council fellowship allowed him to pursue post-doctoral studies at Northwestern University, the London School of Economics, and the University of Capetown. After touring the world for two years, Dr. Bunche was asked to aid Gunnar Myrdal in the Carnegie Corporation’s monumental study of the Negro in America. Together with Arthur Raper, Bunche and Myrdal traveled throughout the South, publishing their findings in An American Dilemma.
Bunche gained a reputation as much for his skills in negotiation as in research. At the start of the Second World War he was called on by the O.S.S. to work as an expert on colonial affairs. He contributed to the North African invasion as well as to general security in West Africa. In 1944, Secretary of State Cordell Hull summoned Bunche to the State department where he became Acting Chief of the Division of Dependent Area Affairs. Bunche was instrumental in the formation of the United Nations. He served as the Am
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