Son of nineteenth-century Ottoman intellectual Namik Kemal, Ali Ekrem Bey was governor of the special administrative district (mutassariflik) of Jerusalem between 1906 and 1908. The private papers of Ali Ekrem Bey, consisting of reports and letters to his superiors and subordinates, have fortunately been preserved and David Kushner has made use of them along with the mutassariflik’s archives to write To Be Governor of Jerusalem. Kushner’s work describes a crucial period in the history of Palestine, the final years of Sultan Abdülhamid’s reign before the Young Turk revolution. From the sources, Kushner paints a picture of the manner in which the Ottoman authorities dealt with the district's problems, such as the arrival of Zionist immigrants to Palestine. Although relying on Ali Ekrem Bey’s experiences in Jerusalem, the problems which he encountered during his tenure as governor were not dissimilar to those which would also have been faced by his predecessors and successors and To Be Governor of Jerusalem should appeal to those interested in late Ottoman Palestine.