The role of law in colonial administrations has often been studied in terms of power: as a tool of colonial violence, as a way of justifying the superiority of European discourses, and as a method of furthering indigenous interests in resistance to foreign rule. But law, as Assaf Likhovski explains, is not merely about power. It is also about representation, and it played an important though understudied role in the process of identity transformation under colonial rule. The legal arena was a key place in which politicians and lawyers told and marketed the stories they wanted told about their communities. Legal texts were in part created independently of power, “as part of a self-reflexive attempt to make sense of the world that emerges out of the quest for self-understanding” (9). Accordingly, these texts can say as much about their authors as about their subjects. The complex dynamic in Palestine during the interwar period, in which British officials governed over the indigenous Arab inhabitants as well as a largely immigrant Jewish population that was simultaneously foreign and native, ensured that debates over laws transformed into debates over self and other in particularly interesting and illuminating ways.

Whereas the mandate period is conventionally seen in terms of three monolithic communities in conflict with one another, Likhovski's analysis shows how the need for self-definition led a multitude of different but overlapping communities to continually contest the shaping of law. Likhovski very successfully demonstrates how complex and fluid Palestinian society really was. Just as no single British identity existed, there was no single Jewish or Arab identity either. Nonetheless, there were common themes that echoed among all attempts to mold law in answering the question “Who am I?” (17). A theme that receives particular attention from Likhovski is the recurring tension between identifying and celebrating certain “traditions” while simultaneously espousing a “modernity” that requires their replacement or rejection.

Likhovski's method rests on closely examining the legal texts and narratives of British, Jewish, and Arab elites who were actively engaged in crafting laws to fit their definitions and redefinitions of national identity. The book is neatly divided into three parts, with each part paying close attention to the positions the elites occupied on the traditional/modern continuum. The first part considers the extent to which the legal arena reflected a process of what Likhovski refers to throughout as “Anglicization.” For British officials, the legal arena operated as a central place to announce their own identities, irrespective of the attempts to serve the instrumental considerations of empire. But it is difficult to talk about a single intention, with officials adopting different positions on the traditional/modern continuum in framing their response to such questions as whether preexisting laws ought to be conservatively retained or English laws be progressively transplanted. Likhovski is particularly interested in rooting out the difference of opinion among officials in their own backgrounds, concluding that the more marginal and less elitist the background at home the more empathy felt for the natives and, thus, the greater the willingness to transplant the perceived benefits of English law.

Part 2 provides a thoughtful examination of how similar positions on the traditional/modern continuum were occupied by a range of Jewish lawyers and scholars when envisioning a legal system that best reflected their identities. Some were motivated by the need to define a Hebrew law in a way that would reflect the supposed “national spirit” of the Jewish people (127), while others were more accepting of the heterogeneous, fragmentary nature of Zionist identity and thus less concerned about law being anglicized. Again, the fluid nature of identity is highlighted: “European Zionist Jews’ identity became transformed as the mandate progressed. The Jews were Europe's other, and some saw themselves as belonging to the Orient and Oriental culture. When they immigrated to Palestine, they became representatives of the West and came to identify themselves with European culture” (169).

The third part of the book turns to an examination of legal texts that can be seen to have reflected transformations in Arab identity during the mandate period. It is the shortest part of the book, reflecting in part the relative scarcity of the sorts of texts that Likhovski's methodology prioritizes. Some helpful insights are provided on important sources that have been largely neglected in the literature, as well as on the problem of how new Palestinian Arab identities were crafted so as to simultaneously balance the tension between the pull of tradition and the push of modernity. But the coverage here is more uneven. For example, Likhovski's attempt to equate Ottoman law with French law certainly requires more explanation. Such a conflation comes across as just the sort of generalization we are otherwise being cautioned against, and it certainly leaves the reader wishing that a more complete picture of the legal regime inherited by the British in 1917–18 was provided at the outset. Likhovski might likewise have usefully elaborated more upon the significance of the distinction raised in part 3 between the process of anglicization (i.e., the influence of English laws) and the influence of a set of laws and discourses generated in the empire (and quite distinct from developments in the metropole).

To suggest that Likhovski might usefully have expanded on such issues is a reflection of the size and importance of the overall subject, as well as the seriousness of the book's contribution. Likhovski has put forward a convincing argument in favor of a more nuanced understanding of the legal history of mandate Palestine than is allowed for by a dichotomous colonizer/native framework. He writes on a complex subject in an engaging style, and he brings a wealth of information and understanding to this subject.