Julia R. Shatz

This book project is a history of child welfare initiatives and institutions in Palestine in the mid-twentieth century. Told from the perspectives of the ordinary people involved in child rescue and reform, this study shows how the child became a primary subject of local, colonial, and global governance in the twentieth century. In looking at child welfare sites such as orphanages, rescue homes, health clinics, reformatory schools, and the juvenile court, “Global Welfare and the Politics of Childhood in Palestine, 1914-1950” reveals how a variety of actors used children and childhood to make competing political and social claims to Palestine's future.