Hanan Ashrawi has pulled off a momentous coup: changing the public image of the PLO from that of a terrorist organization to one of a government-in-exile poised for peaceful change and political responsibility.

A Voice of Reason is the story of this dramatic shift in perception and of the woman responsible for it, one whose status as an anomaly among her own people - an intellectual and a leader while also a wife and mother, a Christian in a predominantly Muslim society - has ideally suited her for the role of intermediary between the West and the Arab world.

The daughter of a wealthy West Bank physician, Hanan had her first taste of political activism as a child living under Jordanian occupation, and later, as a professor of English at Bir Zeit University on the West Bank, she was involved in student uprisings, demonstrations, and confrontations with Israeli authorities. Articulate and politically astute, she was catapulted to international prominence on ABC's Nightline in April 1988, just after the beginning of the Intifada.

Setting the details of Hanan Ashrawi's public and private life into the context of the Middle East's violent history, Victor gives equal time to anecdote and analysis, and impartially traces recent developments in the Israeli/Palestinian peace accord.

Based on fifteen months of interviews with Hanan Ashrawi, and other prominent Palestinians and Israelis, A Voice of Reason is an excellent, balanced introduction to the politics of a volatile region - and the moving story of how one remarkable woman made a difference in a world of seemingly irresolvable conflict.