First documented in the late Bronze Age, about 3200 years ago, the name Palestine (Greek: Παλαιστίνη; Arabic: , Filastin), is the conventional name used between 450 BC and 1948 AD to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River and various adjoining lands. This work explores the evolution of the concept, histories, identity, languages and cultures of Palestine from the Late Bronze Age to the modern era. Moreover, Palestine history is often taught in the West as a history of a land, not as Palestinian history or a history of a people. This book challenges colonial approach to Palestine and the pernicious myth of a land without a people (Masalha 1992, 1997) and argues for reading the history of Palestine with the eyes of the indigenous people of Palestine. The Palestinians are the indigenous people of Palestine; their local roots are deeply embedded in the soil of Palestine and their autochthonous identity and historical heritage long preceded the emergence of a local Palestinian nascent national movement in the late Ottoman period and the advent of Zionist settler-colonialism before the First World War.

The administrative province of Roman Palestine During Roman rule in Palestine, and more specifically between 135 AD and 390 AD, Palestine became one of the Provincias of the empire. This is also a period from which many written records were preserved in a variety of languages – Latin, Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew –and also covered in the annals and texts of the new religion of Christianity. By this time the name ‘Palestine’ was more than a millennium old and had substantial currency. During the Roman period the official/administrative name of ‘Palestine’ was consolidated and popularised in Latin and Greek, which were the two lingua francas of the Roman Empire and Eastern Mediterranean. These two languages affected trade, administration, education, religion, architecture, diplomacy, coinage and key place names throughout the Eastern Mediterranean.