Middle Eastern history Books

Book SynopsisA comprehensive, readable history of the Republic of Turkey that gives equal weight to all periods in the first century of the Republic of Turkey.The republican order of Turkey seems not to have changed much since its foundation in 1923, but there were dramatic transformations: From Atatürk’s modernization dictatorship in the 1920s and 1930s, over the massive migration into the cities and the military coups in the second half of the twentieth century, up to Recep Tayyip Erdoğans electoral autocracy since the 2010s. This book makes us understand Turkey’s historical trajectory in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the fate of its various communities and ethnic groups—in particular Alevis and Kurds—and argues that a particular trait of Turkish political culture is its constant fluctuation between confidence and contention, grandeur and grievance.Trade Review“Maurus Reinkowski’s The History of Turkey: Grandeur and Grievance offers a critical retelling of Turkey’s triumphs and tragedies, providing an empathic exploration of the country’s past over a century. This expertly crafted work illuminates the country’s moments of grandeur and delves into its deep-seated grievances. Through an engagement with state-of-the-art research, Reinkowski’s keen eye for detail allows him to paint a vivid picture of Turkey’s complex history, surpassing standard textbooks. In a time of political crisis, Reinkowski’s engaging yet sober book offers a much-needed update to the perhaps overly optimistic scholarship of the last two decades. Impeccably researched and eloquently written, The History of Turkey: Grandeur and Grievance is an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and anyone seeking a critical understanding of Turkey’s past, present, and future.” — Alp Yenen, Assistant Professor of Modern Turkish History and Culture, Leiden University“In his thought-provoking introductory chapter, Maurus Reinkowski aptly observes that Turkey is a country that evokes anything but indifference. This rings acutely true in 2023, as Turkey not only faces presidential elections but also gears up to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic. The History of Turkey provides an invaluable companion to unlock the historical context of these events. Covering a period from 1912 to the present, the book offers a nuanced, meticulously researched and vividly narrated historical overview. It serves as a comprehensive and widely accessible guide to Turkish history and historiography that also features insightful discussions of Turkey’s most recent decades. By skillfully embedding key developments within their broader historical and cultural contexts, the rich narrative invites readers to explore the complexity and diversity of Turkish history and allows them to recognize enduring legacies and reverberations of the processes depicted in the book.”— Barbara Henning, professor at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Ottoman and Turkish History“This work is the culmination of some forty years of diligent language practice, intensive research, meticulous observation, and genuine engagement with the societies of Turkey. The result is a profound piece of scholarship with pages full of intellectually sophisticated analyses and magisterial detail that provide a new interpretation of the land, state, and people. Well-grounded in a wide range of old and new scholarship, it is a highly accessible account of Turkey from both a comparative and global perspective. This book will eloquently but at the same time disturbingly and constantly remind readers how firmly the genesis of state ideology is built on the foundations of the late Ottoman and early Republican period. It is essential reading for introductory and advanced courses on Turkey and the Middle East, and for those who look for a concise, yet authoritative account of the region in order to understand the state, politics, and society in depth. There is no equivalent study of this quality for Turkey; Reinkowski deserves considerable praise for a work that should receive much attention.”— Metin Atmaca, Professor of Ottoman and Middle East History, Social Sciences University of Ankara"This work of Maurus Reinkowski is an indispensable tool for those aiming to have a profound knowledge on present-day Turkish politics, or to understand this complex society. Having been trained in late Ottoman history and Middle East politics, Reinkowski is a keen observer of political and social developments in contemporary Turkey, also known officially as Türkiye. This study is chronologically organized, beginning with the historical roots of modern Turkey, followed by the Kemalist Republic (1923-1950), the period of 1950-1980, and recent Turkish history. What makes this book so appealing is its concentration on contemporary Turkish developments following the military coup of 1980. It discusses structural conditions leading to a crucial break from Kemalism, commenced with the so-called ‘Turkish-Islamic Synthesis’ ideology of the 1980s, continued by the economic liberalism of Turgut Özal, finally leading to the AKP-era presidential system accompanied by populism and authoritarianism. Reinkowski handles numerous topics, which still bear the quality of actuality, in a precise, informative and balanced manner."— Selçuk Akşin Somel, Sabancı University, Istanbul“This mature work combines affection for the subject with detached insight; serious questioning with a positive approach. Drawing on the current state of research, Reinkowski appreciates Turkey's potential and grievances, but also highlights the dead ends of its ultranationalism. Reading his insightful narrative reveals a central challenge: how to build up trust and democratic confidence in the dynamic, but troubled post-Ottoman country that is Republican Turkey? This work differs from many traditional books on modern Turkey that overemphasize Atatürk, while ignoring the late-Ottoman context and new developments of the twenty-first century.”— Hans-Lukas Kieser, Historian, University of Newcastle, Australia, and University of Zurich, SwitzerlandTable of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction Farewell to the Ottoman Empire The Kemalist Republic, 1923–1950 Precarious Pluralism, 1950–1980 The Promise of Islamic Conservatism, 1980–2013 The Road to Another Republic, 2013–the Present Update on Turkey in the Years 2021–2023 AcknowledgementsTimelineAbbreviationsIndex

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Book SynopsisFrom the organizers of the Palestine Festival of Literature, this anthology of essays connects Palestinian resistance with global freedom struggles against settler colonialism and calls on us to think more concretely about the practice of solidarity. The Palestine Festival of Literature, or PalFest, was created in 2008 as “a cultural initiative committed to the creation of language and ideas for combating colonialism in the 21st century.” The annual festival brings authors from around the world to convene with readers, artists, writers, and activists in cities across Palestine for cross-pollination of radical art, ideas, and literature.These efforts resulted in Their Borders, Our World, an anthology thoughtfully arranged and introduced by PalFest cocurator Mahdi Sabbagh. Contributors include: Yasmin El-Rifae, Jehan Bseiso, Keller Easterling, Dina Omar, Tareq Baconi, Samia Henni, Omer Shah, Kareem Rabie, Ellen Van Neerv

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Book SynopsisWhat can hip-hop tell us about Egypt today? A decade ago, millions of Egyptians took to the streets in a people-led revolution that captivated the world’s attention and sent ripples across the Middle East. But the so-called “Arab Spring” quickly faded, and a return to the status quo—of authoritarian rule—was cemented. What happened to the energy and desire for change? In Egypt, the answer lies in its youth, who comprise the bulk of the country’s fast-growing 106 million citizens. Sixty percent of the population is under the age of twenty-five, and their world views are very much influenced by social media: TikTok is their primary language and medium of choice. Music is their means of expression—in particular, a thriving hip-hop scene known as mahraganat. This music has given voice to deep dissatisfaction with the Egyptian state and the overall conditions of Egyptian society and culture. Could this be the start of a force for change? Laughter in the Dark is a riveting portrait of a country that is being transformed, for good or bad, by the rise of a fresh youth culture.

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Book SynopsisA comprehensive, readable history of the Republic of Turkey that gives equal weight to all periods in the first century of the Republic of Turkey.The republican order of Turkey seems not to have changed much since its foundation in 1923, but there were dramatic transformations: From Atatürk’s modernization dictatorship in the 1920s and 1930s, over the massive migration into the cities and the military coups in the second half of the twentieth century, up to Recep Tayyip Erdoğans electoral autocracy since the 2010s. This book makes us understand Turkey’s historical trajectory in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the fate of its various communities and ethnic groups—in particular Alevis and Kurds—and argues that a particular trait of Turkish political culture is its constant fluctuation between confidence and contention, grandeur and grievance.Trade Review“Maurus Reinkowski’s The History of Turkey: Grandeur and Grievance offers a critical retelling of Turkey’s triumphs and tragedies, providing an empathic exploration of the country’s past over a century. This expertly crafted work illuminates the country’s moments of grandeur and delves into its deep-seated grievances. Through an engagement with state-of-the-art research, Reinkowski’s keen eye for detail allows him to paint a vivid picture of Turkey’s complex history, surpassing standard textbooks. In a time of political crisis, Reinkowski’s engaging yet sober book offers a much-needed update to the perhaps overly optimistic scholarship of the last two decades. Impeccably researched and eloquently written, The History of Turkey: Grandeur and Grievance is an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and anyone seeking a critical understanding of Turkey’s past, present, and future.” — Alp Yenen, Assistant Professor of Modern Turkish History and Culture, Leiden University“In his thought-provoking introductory chapter, Maurus Reinkowski aptly observes that Turkey is a country that evokes anything but indifference. This rings acutely true in 2023, as Turkey not only faces presidential elections but also gears up to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic. The History of Turkey provides an invaluable companion to unlock the historical context of these events. Covering a period from 1912 to the present, the book offers a nuanced, meticulously researched and vividly narrated historical overview. It serves as a comprehensive and widely accessible guide to Turkish history and historiography that also features insightful discussions of Turkey’s most recent decades. By skillfully embedding key developments within their broader historical and cultural contexts, the rich narrative invites readers to explore the complexity and diversity of Turkish history and allows them to recognize enduring legacies and reverberations of the processes depicted in the book.”— Barbara Henning, professor at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Ottoman and Turkish History“This work is the culmination of some forty years of diligent language practice, intensive research, meticulous observation, and genuine engagement with the societies of Turkey. The result is a profound piece of scholarship with pages full of intellectually sophisticated analyses and magisterial detail that provide a new interpretation of the land, state, and people. Well-grounded in a wide range of old and new scholarship, it is a highly accessible account of Turkey from both a comparative and global perspective. This book will eloquently but at the same time disturbingly and constantly remind readers how firmly the genesis of state ideology is built on the foundations of the late Ottoman and early Republican period. It is essential reading for introductory and advanced courses on Turkey and the Middle East, and for those who look for a concise, yet authoritative account of the region in order to understand the state, politics, and society in depth. There is no equivalent study of this quality for Turkey; Reinkowski deserves considerable praise for a work that should receive much attention.”— Metin Atmaca, Professor of Ottoman and Middle East History, Social Sciences University of Ankara"This work of Maurus Reinkowski is an indispensable tool for those aiming to have a profound knowledge on present-day Turkish politics, or to understand this complex society. Having been trained in late Ottoman history and Middle East politics, Reinkowski is a keen observer of political and social developments in contemporary Turkey, also known officially as Türkiye. This study is chronologically organized, beginning with the historical roots of modern Turkey, followed by the Kemalist Republic (1923-1950), the period of 1950-1980, and recent Turkish history. What makes this book so appealing is its concentration on contemporary Turkish developments following the military coup of 1980. It discusses structural conditions leading to a crucial break from Kemalism, commenced with the so-called ‘Turkish-Islamic Synthesis’ ideology of the 1980s, continued by the economic liberalism of Turgut Özal, finally leading to the AKP-era presidential system accompanied by populism and authoritarianism. Reinkowski handles numerous topics, which still bear the quality of actuality, in a precise, informative and balanced manner."— Selçuk Akşin Somel, Sabancı University, Istanbul“This mature work combines affection for the subject with detached insight; serious questioning with a positive approach. Drawing on the current state of research, Reinkowski appreciates Turkey's potential and grievances, but also highlights the dead ends of its ultranationalism. Reading his insightful narrative reveals a central challenge: how to build up trust and democratic confidence in the dynamic, but troubled post-Ottoman country that is Republican Turkey? This work differs from many traditional books on modern Turkey that overemphasize Atatürk, while ignoring the late-Ottoman context and new developments of the twenty-first century.”— Hans-Lukas Kieser, Historian, University of Newcastle, Australia, and University of Zurich, SwitzerlandTable of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction Farewell to the Ottoman Empire The Kemalist Republic, 1923–1950 Precarious Pluralism, 1950–1980 The Promise of Islamic Conservatism, 1980–2013 The Road to Another Republic, 2013–the Present Update on Turkey in the Years 2021–2023 AcknowledgementsTimelineAbbreviationsIndex

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Book SynopsisR. Saadia Gaon (882-942) was unquestionably one of the most important if not the most important medieval Jewish thinker. He dealt with biblical exegesis, philosophy, grammar, poetry, prayer, and Halakha, and in many of these fields he is considered an innovator and a trailblazer, paving new paths for his followers. Many of the sages who lived after him cited from his writings. He served as head of the Academy of Sūra, Babylon, but the impact of his works was felt in all generations who lived and followed. This study seeks to describe and analyze R. Saadia Gaon's life, his public enterprise, his works, and his influence on the generations after him.Trade Review“This book describes and analyzes Rabbi Saadia Gaon’s quest for the religious leadership of the Jewish world in the first half of the tenth century, which he pursued. Through his comprehensive literary work in the fields of interpretation, philosophy, language, poetry, and Halacha. This book discusses elegantly key areas in the work of Saadia Gaon, such as his interpretation of the books of the Bible and his dealings with the Arabic language and Muslim culture, beginning with borrowing of literary models, principles, and terms, and ending with a poignant religious polemic. In addition, Schlossberg deals with the practical ways in which Saadia sought to lead the Jewish people, using educational methods. Saadia emphasizes, according to Schlossberg, the challenges arising from life in exile while cultivating the constant expectation of imminent redemption. This is an extremely important book—a must for anybody interested in Jewish life in the Islamic world, including the Judeo-Arabic-rich culture.” — Professor Benjamin Hary, New York University“Eliezer Schlossberg's R. Saadia Gaon: A Leader of Generations is the first English monograph on this eminent and influential medieval thinker, since Henry Malter's Saadia Gaon: His Life and Works (Philadelphia, 1921). In this learned and graceful work, Schlossberg offers a significant call of attention to the intellectual breakthroughs and ingenious erudition of this founding medieval figure (born el-Fayyum, Egypt, 882, died Baghdad 942). Schlossberg achieves a fresh outlook on Saadia's enduring cultural imprint and sophistication, through six insightful thematic chapters relating to communal leadership, inter-religious polemic, education, scriptural translation, rhetoric, and history. Interwoven with a discerning overview of a century of modern scholarship, Schlossberg's captivating illustration of Saadia's innovations in an array of fields, written and published (to this very day!) in Hebrew, Arabic, and Judeo-Arabic, opens a window to a creative and revolutionary period of intellectual change and interchange, at the unique crossroad of medieval Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.”— Meira Polliack, Professor of Bible, Joseph and Ceil Mazer Chair in Jewish Culture in Muslim Lands and Cairo Geniza Studies, Tel Aviv University“Saadia Gaon is acknowledged as one of the leading Jewish thinkers in the premodern world. While his contributions to biblical exegesis and translation, legal hermeneutics and linguistic thought are largely known, Eliezer Schlossberg lays the main emphasis on Saadia’s public leadership as a ‘leader of generations.’ He begins with a biography of the Gaon and addresses in the following chapters key aspects of his thought. The monograph, which is a welcome addition to recent scholarship, succeeds convincingly to explain why Saadiah and his works continue to hold such fascination until today.”— Ronny Vollandt, Ludwig-Maximilians-UniversitätTable of ContentsIntroductionChapter One: The Leadership of R. Saadia Gaon Chapter Two: Polemic in the Writings of R. Saadia Gaon Chapter Three: Education in the Writings of R. Saadia Gaon Chapter Four: R. Saadia’s Translation of the PentateuchChapter Five: Arabic, Islam, and Rhetoric in R. Saadia’s WorkChapter Six: History, Consolation, and Messianic Future Bibliography General Index

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Book SynopsisEnd of Days is both a meditation on Jewish morality in the age of Israeli Jewish power, and a cri du coeur by an Orthodox Israeli Jew, a former combat officer in the IDF, for Israelis to look into the Jewish religious ethical tradition for an alternative to the secular and religious Zionism that sanctifies power, statehood, and sovereignty. Appealing to a wealth of Jewish sources from the Bible to the present, including medieval Jewish ethical literature, rabbinic sources, Jewish law, and contemporary Israeli thought, the book presents an argument against Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians and the suppression of their rights from the perspective of a modern Israeli religious Jew.Trade Review“Drawing on an impressive range of sources—the Talmud, the writings of Ashkenazi and Sephardic medieval Jewish pietists, the Chofetz Chaim’s forgotten guide for Jewish soldiers, the Yiddish poetry of Jacob Glatstein—Manekin traces in compelling detail the traditional Jewish ethical disposition that recoils from pride, abhors violence, and views power with suspicion. He argues that this traditional Jewish ethics requires a radically different approach to the reality of Jewish political power instantiated by the Israeli state than the dominant view in Israel allows. By the book’s end, he leaves the reader with little doubt that not only is there no need to compromise one’s commitment to Jewish tradition in order to oppose Israel’s occupation, but that a commitment to traditional Jewish ethics requires active opposition to the occupation. Powerful yet unconventional, [this book] is a hybrid of memoir, mussar [morality], family history, halakhic argumentation, and social criticism. It is a manifesto for a new religiously committed Jewish left that is taking shape.”— Joshua Leifer, Tel Aviv Review of Books (on the Hebrew edition)Table of ContentsPreface, by Shaul MagidIntroductionAcknowledgments Remembering Patience Submission Devotion Contentment Listening Index

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Book SynopsisBeautifully illustrated with photographs of the statue and contextual images, and including archival material relating to the British Museum's acquisition, this book tells the story of this magnificent artefact, discussing alongside the draw of colossal Egyptian sculpture, the history of the reign of Ramesses II and the nature of the statue's acquisition.

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Book SynopsisThe key to understanding the Arab world today is unlocking its past. In this authoritative account, John McHugo takes the reader through the political, social and intellectual history of the Arabs from the Roman Empire right up to the present day. Going beyond the headlines, he describes in vivid detail a series of key turning points in Arab history from the mission of the Prophet Muhammad and the expansion of Islam to the region''s interaction with Western ideas and the rise of Islamism. Now fully updated to cover the tumultuous years since the Arab Spring, this lucidly told history reveals how the Arab world came to have its present form and illuminates the choices that lie ahead.Trade Review'A lucid and highly readable history of the Arab peoples up to the present day ... [it] will enlighten all who read it.' Charles Tripp, author of The Power and the People: Paths of Resistance in the Middle East 'This concise, brilliant and erudite book is the product of wide reading, hard thinking and years of direct experience of the Middle East.' Patrick Seale, author of Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East 'Thrilling and poignant, woven with a layered texture of knowledge and empathy' David Gardner, Financial Times 'Recommended for anyone wishing to learn more about the multifaceted history of the Arab world and its relevance to modern day events' Asian Affairs 'Gets to the point with authority, insight and grace to provide the essential political contexts for understanding the ongoing developments in today's Arab world' History Book Club 'Purposeful, insightful and tremendously useful, complete with an excellent bibliographic essay' Kirkus; `Timely ... McHugo succeeds in producing a clear and elegant of the sweep of Arab history from the birth of Muhammad to the military coup that overthrew the government of Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi. ... The value of McHugo's book is enhanced by the richness of its references and fullness of its bibliography.' Susannah Tarbush, The Tanjara; `Thrilling and poignant, woven with a layered texture of knowledge and empathy that deftly stitches familiar figures into the narrative in a fresh way.' David Gardner, International Affairs Editor, Financial Times, and author of Last Chance: the Middle East in the Balance; `Highly readable ... Ideal for novices, it is also a useful and exciting read for those who have read much about the area but never had the whole story summed up in a single volume.' Jordan Times; '[An] elegant work of history. It is an introductory history for newcomers to the field, but it still manages to take up some of the most significant debates without making them banal. This combination makes this book one of the more recommendable introductions to Arab history.' Journal of Peace Research; `... a valuable and rewarding work ... highly recommended' Bulletin of the British Foundation for the Study of Arabia; Selected, Choice's Outstanding Academic Title listTable of ContentsContents: List of Maps 8 Glossary of Arabic Terms and Words 9 Preface 13 One When History Changed Direction 19 Two Growing Apart 49 Three The West Takes Control 77 Four Sharing an Indigestible Cake 111 Five Secularism and Islamism in Egypt 150 Six The West Seems to Retreat 168 Seven The Six Day War and its Consequences 215 Eight Iraq, Israel, Militancy and Terrorism 228 Nine The Age of the Autocrats and the Rise of Islamism 265 Conclusion: Something Snaps - The Arab Spring and Beyond 293 Acknowledgements 322 Notes 324 Bibliography 331 Suggestions for Further Reading 338 Index 341

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Book SynopsisAn infernal catalogue of manic visionaries, inspired by the poetry of the Middle East.In a new work in which conceptual elaboration, storytelling, and poetics are fused in the infernal heat of the desert, the cycle of Omnicide is closed with a philosophy of doom, deception, and the game, plunging headlong into the inevitable, the fatal, and the infinite. A series of controlled combustions fuelled by fragments drawn from the poetry and literature of the Middle-East, Omnicide II introduces us to a new cast of manic visionaries, from the Selemaniac to the Crystallomaniac, the Bibliomaniac to the Aeromaniac. In his relentless cataloguing of the myriad figures and portents of omnicidal doom, Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh resumes the offensive of those writers, artists, and thinkers for whom the fiercest creative incandescence is only kindled in the shadow of certain doom. Amid war cries and lullabies, mages, wolves and pelicans, sabres and crystals, drones and soul-stealers, in settings ranging from the opium den to the Qatari luxury hotels, with his unique style and methodology, his dizzying breadth of references, and his implacable will to follow the most deranging lines of thought and evoke the most startling images, Mohaghegh draws the reader into territories disturbing and unfamiliar, atmospheres delicate and grotesque, moods morbid yet life-affirming, in a book that evokes fever and exudes dead calm. The utterly absorbing music of this writing both lulls and disquiets—a contemporary Necronomicon, an inexhaustible treasury of recipes for disaster, catastrophe, ruination and destruction, all in the name of the most intense creation.

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Book SynopsisThis book reviews and analyses the modern history of Kuwait by telling the story of Abd al-Aziz Sa'ud al-Babtain (b. 1936), a businessman, philanthropist, and poet whose own story closely interweaves with the history of the state. 'The Poet and Businessman' takes a uniquely wide-ranging view of this history and is a rare study of an individual from a generation in the Gulf who experienced it firsthand and witnessed the benefits of the discovery of oil. It was this discovery, which came with costs alongside the many benefits, that has played a crucial part in the socio-economic and cultural development of Kuwait and across the wider Gulf region. Constructing an overview of the modern history of Kuwait in parallel with the life of Abd al-Aziz Sa'ud al-Babtain, Stenberg succeeds in filling a lacuna in contemporary scholarship on the Middle East, especially on a neglected area of Arabian history. The result is a balanced account of the state of Kuwait enriched by the story of a remarkable and influential individual.Trade Review‘Poet and Businessman provides a wonderful insight into the tremendous change that has gripped the Gulf region, and Kuwait in particular, over the past 70 years. The book is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the political and social changes in a country that only became independent in 1961. A significant addition to the existing literature.’ Dr Christian Koch, Director of Research, Gulf Research Center; ‘Stenberg offers an illuminating lens on the history of modern Kuwait in the life of the founder of one of the country’s most successful and influential family-owned holding companies. A resourceful entrepreneur and a keen advocate of Arabic poetry and culture, al-Babtain is older than Kuwait itself and his story exemplifies the role his generation of business magnates and philanthropists have had on the country’s path to a national identity and economic prosperity.’ Lisa Anderson, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; ‘This is an engaging and illuminating work on a period of history in the Gulf region that remains overlooked. A key aspect of Stenberg’s discussion is an analysis of Kuwait’s post-invasion transformations, shedding light on the hopes and struggles of its leadership and its people, citizens and residents, women and men. Al-Babtain’s career captures nuances of, and relationships between,Islam, Arabism, capitalism and culture, both state and popular.’ Dr Amal Ghazal, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and Simon Fraser University

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Book SynopsisThe “Middle East” has long been an indispensable and ubiquitous term in discussing world affairs, yet its history remains curiously underexplored. In Inventing the Middle East Guillemette Crouzet charts the spatial, political, and cultural emergence of the Middle East, not in the twentieth century but in the nineteenth.Trade Review“A welcome reassessment that not only shows how Britain’s empire in the Middle East began and ended in the Persian Gulf but reminds us of the violence and contestation of that colonial relationship. Meticulously researched and rigorously argued – an outstanding book.” Eugene Rogan, University of Oxford and author of The Arabs: A History “Deeply researched and elegantly written, Crouzet’s Inventing the Middle East offers a major intervention in historical analysis of Britain’s conception of the nineteenth-century Persian Gulf. Taking archaeologists, cartographers, colonial bureaucrats, pearl fishers, slave traders, steam technologists, and Wahhabis into her capacious purview, Crouzet expertly anatomizes the emergence of the Gulf.” Margot Finn, University College London“Crouzet re-centres the Gulf in early globalizing flows and provides a welcome antidote to more conventional accounts that treat the region as peripheral to world history prior to the discovery and extraction of oil.” International Affairs“Crouzet provides an “aquatic and amphibious history” of the region, primarily through the prism of British records [and] delivers a highly readable and methodologically sound account of how the British envisioned and shaped the Gulf from the 1780s to the early 20th century. The book carefully deconstructs the hybrid political and legal architecture that resulted from the interactions between the most powerful empire of the late 19th century and local stakeholders.” *International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies *

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Book SynopsisIn his iconic musical travelogue Heavy Metal Islam, Mark LeVine first brought the views and experiences of a still-young generation to the world. In We'll Play till We Die, he joins with this generation's leading voices to write a definitive history of the era, closing with a cowritten epilogue that explores the meanings and futures of youth music from North Africa to Southeast Asia. We'll Play till We Die dives into the revolutionary music cultures of the Middle East and larger Muslim world before, during, and beyond the waves of resistance that shook the region from Morocco to Pakistan. This sequel to Mark LeVine's celebrated Heavy Metal Islam shows how some of the world's most extreme music not only helped inspire and define region-wide protests, but also exemplifies the beauty and diversity of youth cultures throughout the Muslim world. Two years after Heavy Metal Islamwas published in 2008, uprisings and revolutions spread like wildfire. The young people organizing and proteTrade Review"Seen from one angle, Mark LeVine is a respected professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of California, Irvine, not far from Los Angeles. . . . But LeVine is also a rock guitarist gifted enough to perform in the shadow of Mick Jagger or Doctor John. . . . In fact, LeVine combines his academic methods and his passion for music in his solid investigations of the alternative scene in the Middle East . . . His last book, We'll Play Till We Die, deals with material gathered during, as the book's subtitle puts it, his Journeys across a Decade of Revolutionary Music in the Muslim World." * Le Monde * "The fresh and original perspective LeVine shows in Heavy Metal Islam and We’ll Play Till We Die opens our eyes to the power of music to create an audience, engage it and encourage it to act." * Oriente Moderno *Table of ContentsContents List of Illustrations Author’s Note: Revolutionary Auras and Phantasms Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration Introduction From Uprisings to Plagues 1 • Morocco Finding Harmonies in a Land of Dissidence 2 • Yalla, “Let’s Play!” Egypt from the Pharaoh to the General 3 • Palestine/Israel Uprisings in Music 4 • Lebanon Remixed but Never Remastered 5 • Iran Living in the Upside Down and Inside Out 6 • Pakistan Shredding the Funk from the Valleys to the Sea By Way of an Epilogue The Joys of Resistance References by Chapter List of Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisUnder Seleucid rule, time no longer restarted with each new monarch. Instead, progressively numbered years, identical to the system we use today, became the measure of historical duration. Paul Kosmin shows how this invention of a new kind of time—and resistance to it—transformed the way we organize our thoughts about the past, present, and future.Trade ReviewWithout Paul Kosmin’s meticulous investigation of what Seleucus achieved in creating his calendar without end we would never have been able to comprehend the traces of it that appear in late antiquity…A magisterial contribution to this hitherto obscure but clearly important restructuring of time in the ancient Mediterranean world. -- G. W. Bowersock * New York Review of Books *Tells the story of how the Seleucid Empire revolutionized chronology by picking a Year One and counting from there, rather than starting a new count, as other states did, each time a new monarch was crowned…Fascinating. -- Christopher Tayler * Harper’s *In 305 BCE, Seleucus I, Alexander’s successor as the ruler of a multiethnic and multilingual empire in Asia, introduced a new era. The new dating system was intended to make the king master of time. It ultimately transformed the historical consciousness of the empire’s populations, triggered the nostalgic desire to keep the memory of a pre-Seleucid past, and shaped expectations of the future. With erudition, theoretical sophistication, and meticulous discussion of the sources, Paul Kosmin sheds new light on the meaning of time, memory, and identity in a multicultural setting. -- Angelos Chaniotis, author of Age of ConquestsKosmin’s richly-textured book brings home the dramatic newness and deep reach of Seleucid temporal symbolism and demonstrates the close interweaving of spatial and temporal imaginations. This bold, interdisciplinary analysis of indigenous responses to the Seleucid ‘time regime’ provides tools that will facilitate dialogue and collaboration across fields of classical, biblical, and ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean studies. -- Anathea Portier-Young, author of Apocalypse against EmpireTime and Its Adversaries in the Seleucid Empire demonstrates not only what can be done with often obscure and difficult sources in several ancient languages, but also what needs to be done if we are to make real progress in our understanding of the Hellenistic world. What we have here is not just another study of the Seleucid Empire but a new model for how to study the history of the ancient world in our global present. -- Johannes Haubold, author of Greece and Mesopotamia

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Book SynopsisEurope and the Islamic World sheds much-needed light on the shared roots of Islamic and Western cultures and on the richness of their inextricably intertwined histories, refuting once and for all the misguided notion of a "clash of civilizations" between the Muslim world and Europe. In this landmark book, three eminent historians bring to life theTrade ReviewOne of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2013 "[T]his is serious history and, as such, seriously worthwhile."--Robert Irwin, Literary Review "[Europe and the Islamic World] is an important contribution to an ever more urgent debate. By providing a wealth of inconvenient detail that fails to fit in to the simplistic stereotypes, it challenges the very notion that humanity can be divided into separate 'civilisations', however bitter at times the conflict between them."--Jonathan Harris, History Today "The comprehensive coverage of the subject matter makes this work the new standard in the field."--Choice "Europe and the Islamic World is a major antidote of this dangerous myopic worldview, offering a critical and balanced assessment of a historic encounter marked not only by religious competition and conflict but also by coexistence and cooperation in domestic politics and foreign relations, trade and commerce, science and culture."--Lisa Kaaki, Arab News "As provocative as it is groundbreaking, this book describes this shared history in all its richness and diversity, revealing how ongoing encounters between Europe and Islam have profoundly shaped both."--World Book Industry "This book is a solid scholarly work on the current and ongoing debate on the relations between Europe and the Islamic world. It differs from previous works on two major grounds: it offers a detailed narrative of key neglected aspects of this history and it refutes the notion of the 'clash of civilizations.'"--Adel Manai, Canadian Journal of History "Tolan clearly shows how to approach the history of Islam and Christianity during the medieval era in a much more sensitive manner, paying respect to here to fore often suppressed or muted voices on both sides."--Albrecht Classen, Mediaevistik "The status of non-Muslims in Muslim lands is a major theme in the book and it is dealt with effectively by each author... [T]his book achieves its purpose well."--David Abulafia, English Historical Review "[T]his book is an extremely detailed, learned and informative account of the history of the two regions."--Alex Mallett, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations "[G]randly ambitious ... [R]eaders will come away from the book profoundly suspicious of simplistic narratives about Muslim aggression and endless jihad."--Philip Jenkin, The Christian CenturyTable of ContentsForeword by John L. Esposito vii General Introduction 1 Part I: Saracens and Ifranj: Rivalries,Emulation, and Convergences By John Tolan *1. The Geographers' World: From Arabia Felix to the Balad al-Ifranj (Land of the Franks) 11 *2. Conquest and Its Justifications: Jihad, Crusade, Reconquista 27 *3. The Social Inferiority of Religious Minorities: Dhimmis and Mudejars 49 *4. In Search of Egyptian Gold: Traders in the Mediterranean 70 *5. On the Shoulders of Giants: Transmission and Exchange of Knowledge 87 Part II: The Great Turk and Europe By Gilles Veinstein *Introduction to Part II: Continuity and Change in Geopolitics 111 *6. The Ottoman Conquest in Europe 120 *7. Ottoman Europe: An Ancient Fracture 149 *8. Antagonistic Figures 163 *9. The Islamic-Christian Border in Europe 186 *10. Breaches in the Conflict 206 Part III: Europe and the Muslim World in the Contemporary Period By Henry Laurens *Introduction to Part III 257 *11. The Eighteenth Century as Turning Point 259 *12. Civilization or Conquest? 277 *13. The Age of Reform 295 *14. The Age of Empire 322 *15. The First Blows to European Domination 338 *16. The Great War and the Beginning of Emancipation 360 *17. Contemporary Issues 387 Notes 405 Selected Bibliography 439 Index 445

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Book SynopsisThe first full-length book of the unique and extraordinary political situation in Rojava, SyriaTrade Review'Written by long-time activists of the Kurdish freedom movement, this book is the first authentic insight into the complex dimensions of Rojava's radical revolution' -- Dilar Dirik, author and activist of the Kurdish Women's Movement'The Kurdish revolution of Democratic Autonomy is of enormous importance for the future of the world. It points a possible way forward out of the tragedy of the Middle East, and more than that: a possible way forward out of the catastrophe that is capitalism. This book is of great help... A careful and detailed account that is filled with personal narrative, it is both easily accessible and very informative' -- John Holloway, Professor of Sociology, Autonomous University of Puebla, author of Crack Capitalism (Pluto, 2010)'A deeply insightful contribution to understanding the Kurdish movement's achievements in Rojava' -- ROAR'Gives a profound insight' -- Firat News Agency'A comprehensive and readable guide to the complex situation. This hugely exciting and important book has wider lessons for feminists, ecosocialists and others who want to create an anti-capitalist alternative' -- Green Left Weekly'Provides excellent background information about this important but little understood struggle' -- The MonthlyTable of ContentsList of Figures Translator’s Note Foreword by David Graeber Introduction Prologue: On the Road to Til Koçer 1. Background 2. Rojava’s Diverse Cultures 3. Democratic Confederalism 4. The Liberation 5. A Womens' Revolution 6. Democratic Autonomy in Rojava 7. Civil Society Associations 8. Defense: The Theory of the Rose 9. The New Justice System 10. The Democratization of Education 11. Health Care 12. The Social Economy 13. Ecological Challenges 14. Neighbors 15. Prospects Afterword: The Philosophy of Democratic Autonomy by Asya Abdullah Glossary About the Authors Index

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Book SynopsisYezidi survivors speak out in this important history of persecution and genocideTrade Review'A comprehensive, indispensable work' -- 'Südwind''The discrimination, exclusion and persecution of the Yezidis did not just begin in 2014 with the so-called Islamic State. Thomas Schmidinger shows with great dedication the anatomy of a subtle genocide against the Yezidis in last two hundred years' -- Professor Jan Ilhan Kizilhan, Director of the Institute for Genocide and Peace Studies, Stuttgart'An important book delving into the history and recent memory of the community, a vivid reminder of how the past and present of the Yezidis continue to be painfully intertwined' -- Nelida Fuccaro, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the New York University Abu Dhabi'Thomas Schmidinger is one the best experts on the region. This book is a must read' -- Josef Weidenholzer, former MEP and Professor Emeritus, University of Linz, Austria'Fills a void in the literature. Through impressive first-hand documentation, the book explains the culture and history of this unique community in sympathetic terms and details the rapacious genocidal aggression of ISIS to obliterate this ancient Mesopotamian community' -- Tareq Y. Ismael, Professor of Political Science, University of Calgary, CanadaTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Preface to the English edition Timeline Abbreviations Maps Introduction Part I History of Sinjar and the genocide 1. The Sinjar Mountains as a natural space 2. Sinjar in ancient times 3. From the Islamic conquest to the periphery of the Ottoman Empire 4. The religion of the Êzîdî 5. Social order and religious office-holders of the Êzîdî 6. The tribal society in Sinjar 7. Sinjar in the late Ottoman Empire 8. The British occupation and protectorate 9. The Êzîdî in Iraq 10. Resentments against the Êzîdî 11. Ethno-confessional groups in the Sinjar region: Êzîdî, Christians, Jews and Muslims 12. Sinjar under the rule of the Ba’th Party 13. After the fall of Saddam Hussein: between Baghdad and Erbil 14. The massacre of 14 August 2007: the 73rd firman? 15. Encircled by jihadists 16. The IS genocide in August 2014 17. Genocide 18. The reintroduction of slavery and sexual violence 19. Struggle for liberation: regional conflicts in the smallest spaces 20. The life of the displaced 21. Regional conflicts: Sinjar in the crosshairs of Turkey and Iran 22. Marginalised and instrumentalised: is there a future for the Êzîdî in Iraq? Part II Photographs Part III Interviews Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisHow are alliances made? In this book, Stephen M. Walt makes a significant contribution to this topic, surveying theories of the origins of international alliances and identifying the most important causes of security cooperation between states. In...Trade ReviewThe Origins of Alliances offers a different way of thinking about our security and thus about our diplomacy. It ought to be read by anyone with a serious interest in understanding why our foreign policy is so often self-defeating. * New Republic *A valuable refinement of traditional balance-of-power theory.... Walt provides a sophisticated account of recent Middle East diplomacy. * International Affairs *

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Book SynopsisThe book examines the ways that rulers, rogues, and rebels have worked together to forge modern Middle Eastern history from the rise of the Ottoman and Safavid empires.Trade Review"[The author] succeeds in producing a book that can serve as a university-level textbook or a source of information for anyone interested in knowing the background for breaking news...Excellent maps, photos and boxes defining pivotal groups, places, phenomena and events, from Sufism, Janissaries and the Mamluks to the Alawi, Jerusalem and Hamas, supplement and enrich the text...The emphasis is not on single events but on the interaction between the governors and the governed over time— the stuff of which history is made. " -- Sally Bland * The Jordan Times *"Many of the available introductory histories of the modern Middle East overemphasize the role of European powers and the top down authoritarian nature of the state. Betty Anderson's pathbreaking and multilayered account focuses on coalitions and networks and shows how groups can at once be subnational and transnational, creating an account of foreign intervention that does not rob the region's people of agency. An essential book for any instructor, scholar, or student of Middle East history, politics, society, and culture." -- Noora Lori * Boston University *"In this thoughtfully researched and clearly written book, Betty Anderson deftly weaves an intricate narrative of the modern history of the Middle East. Delving into the intimacies of shifting political dynamics and social transformations, Anderson perceives the region within transnational frameworks as well as against locally specific contexts. This book can easily serve as a central text in both undergraduate and graduate courses." -- Nadya Sbaiti * American University of Beirut *"This fascinating history of the modern Middle East reveals the complexities of the region, connecting past with present through a novel pedagogical approach. Betty Anderson has written the most sophisticated textbook I've read on the region, one that will quickly join the ranks of classic works in the field." -- Bedross Der Matossian * University of Nebraska-Lincoln *"In her deft analysis of the constantly changing region we call the 'Middle East,' Betty Anderson argues for the prominent role played by previously marginalized actors such as students, women, workers, and peasants in making the modern Middle East. This book represents a refreshing new approach that expands categories of analysis and is a valuable contribution to the field of Middle East Studies." -- Ellen Fleischmann * University of Dayton *"Betty Anderson's A History of the Modern Middle East draws on a new generation of scholarship to offer a social history of the Middle East that incorporates voices 'from below.' Tracing recurring patterns of power struggles since the early Ottoman era, Anderson also contextualizes the recent phase of uprisings within a deep history of political activism and rebellion and counters popular myths about political and cultural stasis in the Middle East." -- Waleed Hazbun, Director of the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies * American University of Beirut *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsPrologue: Islam and the Prophet's Successors chapter abstractThis chapter introduces the historical events surrounding the rise of Islam, the main pillars of the faith, and the reasons behind the schism between Sunnis and Shia. It follows the Arab armies as they moved beyond the Arabian Peninsula and established empires led by caliphs in Damascus (Umayyad) and Baghdad (Abbasid). During the reign of the Abbasids, religious scholars codified Islamic law (sharia) by using reasoned interpretations of the messages contained within the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet. The Abbasid Empire collapsed with the Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1258. The topics of this chapter are referenced throughout the book as later empires ruled over the Muslim world and as Arabs looked back on these days as a golden age defining the beginnings of their national identities. 1Birth of Empires: The Ottoman and Safavid Empires through the 18th Century chapter abstractThis chapter begins with the founding stories of the Ottoman and Safavid Empires and ends in the 18th century with the fragmentation of the former and the destruction of the latter. The chapter analyzes the systems of governance established in each empire because the institutions built within them proved influential well into the 19th and 20th centuries. The Ottoman sultans presented themselves as protectors of Sunni Islam and succeeded in ruling over a diverse population by training slaves for political and military positions in the halls of imperial governance and contracting with intermediaries to govern the provinces. The Safavid shahs established Shii Islam as the state religion and centralized an Iran that had been politically fragmented for centuries. Both empires faced increasing economic and military pressure from the British, French, Russians and Austrians. 2Reform and Rebellion: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Qajar Iran in the 19th Century chapter abstractThis chapter examines the reform programs initiated in the 19th century by leaders in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and the newly established Qajar Empire. Western-style military, educational, legal, and administrative reforms were introduced with the hope that centralized governance could be achieved which would be able to prevent European incursions. The Ottoman Empire and Egypt went into debt paying for these reforms, Egypt was colonized by Britain, and the Qajars struggled to centralize, but the reforms within these territories had lasting effects on governance and society. Newly trained provincial and imperial leaders gained power, and populations were brought into direct contact with their governments through taxation and conscription. The relationship between monarch and subject began to transform into a relationship between state and citizen, mediated by constitutions and the standardization and codification of law. 3Social Transformations: Workers and Nationalists in Egypt, Mount Lebanon, and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century chapter abstractThis chapter examines how populations reacted to the reforms discussed in Chapter 2. The reforms were top-down measures introduced by shahs, sultans and their representatives but the opportunities they created for individuals to enter new schools, professions, and military roles catalyzed widespread socio-economic changes unanticipated by the reforms' authors. Rebels opposed European colonial incursions and state attempts to centralize control. New landowners built powerful client networks, consolidating economic and political power. Workers went on strike in industries that had not existed in the Middle East before the middle of the 19th century. Egyptians, Arabs, Armenians, Kurds, and the peoples of the Balkans organized national movements to gain new political rights from the Ottoman Empire and the European colonizers. 4The Great War: Qajar Iran and the Ottoman Empire from Revolution to World War I chapter abstractThis chapter details the formation of Iranian and Turkish national identities and the revolutionary movements that instituted constitutions and parliaments in Qajar and Ottoman governments on the eve of World War I. Newly trained soldiers, students, and professionals in the Ottoman Empire pushed the old elites from power. In Qajar Iran, the ulama and bazaaris rebelled alongside the new social cadres to weaken the power of the shah. The war ended with the collapse of the empires, and new Iranian, Turkish and Egyptian states emerged. Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Transjordan became mandates under French and British rule. The British and French created these new states with little input from the people living within them, while also promising that the Zionist movement of Europe could establish a national homeland in Palestine. 5State Formation and Colonial Control: Turkey, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Transjordan, and Saudi Arabia in the 1920s and 1930s chapter abstractThis chapter examines the difficulties the Iranians, Turks, British, French, and the newly designated Syrians, Lebanese, Transjordanians, Saudi Arabians, and Iraqis faced in establishing new states. Rebellions in Turkey and Iran led to the formation of independent and authoritarian governments under Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal. In the Arab mandates, the British and French repressed rebellions and set up local governments led by the old notables who had performed the same function for the Ottoman Empire before the war. The notables' authority was challenged by the new social cadres protesting government collusion with the colonizers and the hegemony of local elites. This chapter illustrates how difficult it was to establish new states in the Middle East because the borders were artificial and few new citizens were being served by their governments. 6Rebels and Rogues: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Palestine, and Israel in the Interwar Years chapter abstractThis chapter analyzes how the Great Depression, in concert with the expanded school systems, industrial bases, and militaries, politicized many in the growing urban populations. Starting with Egypt, the chapter examines the country's dysfunctional electoral process and its uneven economic development. Students, workers, professionals, and military and paramilitary units took to the streets demanding that government become more participatory. World War II ended with the independence of the Arab mandates. None of the protesters' demands were addressed, however, despite the withdrawal of British and French forces. The conflict between the Palestinians and Jews in Palestine culminated in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 and the establishment of the state of Israel, with Israel claiming most of Palestine, and Egypt and Jordan controlling the remainder. 7Military Coups: Politics and Violence: Iran, Turkey, and the Arab States, 1952 - 1980 chapter abstractThis chapter examines the ideologies of the most influential political parties that emerged in this period and describes the military coups that overturned governance throughout the region. Rebellions broke out after WWII as students, professionals, workers, paramilitary and military units demanded more populist and socialist policies. In the Arab countries, the Bath and Communist parties pushed for more equitable economic structures and independence from imperialist control. Military officers in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq staged military coups to introduce reforms, and the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia were forced to adjust their economic policies to address citizen demands. In Turkey, years of vibrant electoral competition were followed by short periods of military rule. The Iranian shah became increasingly authoritarian after the US CIA helped him subdue a rising nationalist movement. 8Cold War Battles: The Suez Crisis, Arab-Israeli Conflicts, and the Lebanese Civil War chapter abstractThe chapter examines the wars that emerged within the context of the Cold War and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Starting with the Baghdad Pact, the states of the Middle East chose sides in the Cold War, with Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and initially Iraq joining the United States' side and the others trying to remain neutral but finding themselves drawn to the Soviet side. Arabs and Israelis fought each other in the Suez Crisis of 1956, the 1967 War, and the 1973 War. Egypt made peace with Israel; the Palestinians formed their own fedayeen units to fight Israel. The Israelis and the Palestinians—as well as the surrounding Arab states, the US, and the Soviet Union—all participated in the Lebanese Civil War between 1975 and 1990 in which the country's sectarian groups were pitted against each other. 9Rulers for Life: State Construction, Consolidation, and Collapse chapter abstractThis chapter examines how the leaders in the Middle East managed to hold power for extended periods. They succeeded because they controlled their country's military forces but they also had to address the needs of their populace. States expanded the social safety nets to bring schooling, health care, and jobs to most of the population. Constitutions, parliaments, political parties, and elections mobilized populations for state projects but personality cults, security organizations, and control over all aid and state funds ensured presidential and monarchical hegemony for decades. The only state leader to fall was the Iranian shah because he faced massive nationwide protest against his rule. All the tools he and his colleagues used to maintain their authority failed, and the shah's government was replaced by a new Islamic Republic. 10Upheaval: Islamism, Invasion, and Rebellion from the 1990s into the 21st Century chapter abstractThis chapter examines economic and political challenges of recent years. The 1970s witnessed a privatization process of nationalized industries in Egypt and Turkey, and the other countries followed suit. The breakdown of the states' social welfare nets helped catalyze rebellions against the states, first from left-leaning students and workers and then from religiously-oriented Sunni university and professional groups. Most participants wanted to reform society so that people could live pious lives. A small number were militant Islamists who wanted to forcibly inaugurate Islamic elements. Shia and Kurds in Iraq organized to fight for national rights, and the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. Palestinians and Israelis unsuccessfully worked toward peace. Epilogue: Revolution, Reaction, and Civil War chapter abstractThe 21st century witnessed massive demonstrations to overthrow longtime government leaders, reflecting the collective mobilization that had taken place for years within new political parties, labor unions, and social media. However, societies also became fragmented, making sectarian division, civil war, and conflict ever-present. Syria has become the epicenter because the protests over authoritarian state policies that began in 2011 evolved within only a couple of months into a countrywide civil war. Its effects have spread throughout the region and into Europe. Groups such as ISIS in Syria and Iraq are fighting to overthrow the foundations of their governing bodies. Because of the civil war in Syria, the failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and dire economic conditions across the region, millions of refugees struggle to gain access to basic foodstuffs, jobs, health care, housing, and education. The direction from here is uncertain.

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Book SynopsisThe first comprehensive account of space's centrality to confronting state-endorsed violence, this volume draws upon ethnographic research gathered throughout the first half of the 2010s, the period of Turkey's quickly deteriorating global image.

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Book SynopsisDeveloped out of a larger oral history project collecting and archiving the ways in which women narrated their experiences of the Lebanese Civil War, this book focuses on a wide range of subjects, all framed as women telling their ‘war stories’.

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Book SynopsisDrawing on ethnographic research in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, Christopher Harker how Israel's use of debt to keep Palestinians economically unstable is a form of slow colonial violence embedded into the everyday lives of citizens.Trade Review“The first in-depth ethnographic research on debt formation in the contemporary Palestinian context, this groundbreaking work proposes a host of new ways for social geographers to rethink debt at multiple scales. Spacing Debt ambitiously engages theoretical debates across a wide array of disciplinary approaches and effectively links it with fascinating and carefully treated ethnographic cases and interview materials.” -- Deborah James, author of * Money from Nothing: Indebtedness and Aspiration in South Africa *“This is the first sustained treatment of the everyday lives of debt in the Palestinian context based on in-depth fieldwork and long-term engagement with the communities under study. Theoretically innovative and ethnographically rich, this groundbreaking study offers much-needed sociological insight into Palestine's neoliberal debt regime, while showing how Palestine as 'colonial exception' is a rich site to theorize social geographies of debt.” -- Rema Hammami, Birzeit University“Spacing Debt is an essential read for scholars of debt and finance, and for those interested in modes of theory-building that start from the ways in which people live and choose to narrate their lives.... Thinking of debt as endurance helps us see people living with debt as active agents." -- Enora Robin * International Journal of Urban and Regional Research *“Spacing Debt is a thorough and important book that will serve as a refer­ence on the livelihood of urban Palestinians for years to come. Ethnographically grounded and theoretically ambitious, the book offers an interesting read on courses in economic sociology, global develop­ment, and the like.” -- Lotte Segal * Middle East Journal *

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Book SynopsisNot long after her father died, Afsaneh Najmabadi discovered that her father had a secret second family and that she had a sister she never knew about. In Familial Undercurrents, Najmabadi uncovers her family's complex experiences of polygamous marriage to tell a larger story of the transformations of notions of love, marriage, and family life in mid-twentieth-century Iran. She traces how the idea of marrying for love and the desire for companionate, monogamous marriage acquired dominance in Tehran's emerging urban middle class. Considering the role played in that process by late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century romance novels, reformist newspapers, plays, and other literature, Najmabadi outlines the rituals and objects---such as wedding outfits, letter writing, and family portraits---that came to characterize the ideal companionate marriage. She reveals how in the course of one generation men's polygamy had evolved from an acceptable open practice to a taboo best kept secret. ATrade Review“Afsaneh Najmabadi’s creative mélange of history and memoir makes a compelling case for microhistory and even more specifically for personal history as a living document and an archive to be explored in uncovering Iranian social history. I greatly appreciate how Najmabadi has brought history to life.” -- Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, author of * Conceiving Citizens: Women and the Politics of Motherhood in Iran *“Few scholars elevate the personal to the theoretical with the economy and elegance of Afsaneh Najmabadi. She translates a claim that her father had a secret second family into a journey of research, producing exquisite reflections on urban/space transformations that facilitated familial change. Stories are not just stories, as Najmabadi interrogates them to extract and advance their enduring theoretical significance. She sweeps into history and history making.” -- Suad Joseph, general editor of the * Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures *“This well-written book is both informative and entertaining. Recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.” -- G. M. Farr * Choice *Table of ContentsCast of Characters ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xvii In Lieu of an Introduction 1 1. Marrying for Love 13 2. Objects: Letters, Wedding Clothes, and Photographs 41 3. Meanings of Marriage: Forming a Family or Providing Sexual Pleasure 75 4. Urban Transformations 111 Epilogue: Naming Marriage, Naming Kin 127 Notes 131 Bibliography 149 Index 155

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Book SynopsisA cultural study of modern Qatar and how it navigates change and tradition Qatar, an ambitious country in the Arabian Gulf, grabbed headlines as the first Middle Eastern nation selected to host the FIFA World Cup. As the wealthiest country in the worldand one of the fastest-growingit is known for its capital, Doha, which boasts a striking, futuristic skyline. In Changing Qatar, Geoff Harkness takes us beyond the headlines, providing a fresh perspective on modern-day life in the increasingly visible Gulf. Drawing on three years of immersive fieldwork and more than a hundred interviews, he describes a country in transition, one struggling to negotiate the fluid boundaries of culture, tradition, and modernity. Harkness shows how Qataris reaffirmand challengetraditions in many areas of everyday life, from dating and marriage, to clothing and humor, to gender and sports. A cultural study of citizenship in modern Qatar, this book offers an illuminating portrait that cannot be found elsewheTrade ReviewThis book reads very well. The author’s writing style is engaging, easy to follow and thought provoking....Given the dearth of information on Qatar, I believe this book will have wide appeal and provide useful and interesting insight into a little known country and culture. -- Christine Lindholm, Associate Dean for Virginia Commonwealth University, School of the ArtsChanging Qatar changes not just how we think about the Arabian Gulf but how we think about political order, gender and the role of great wealth in making up cities and the people within them. It is a singular accomplishment—shrewd, engrossing, and rich with ideas and substance. -- Harvey Molotch, co-editor of The New Arab Urban: Gulf Cities of Wealth, Ambition, and Distress

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Book SynopsisIn Decolonizing Palestine, Somdeep Sen rejects the notion that liberation from colonialization exists as a singular moment in history when the colonizer is ousted by the colonized. Instead, he considers the case of the Palestinian struggle for liberation from its settler colonial condition as a complex psychological and empirical mix of the colonial and the postcolonial. Specifically, he examines the two seemingly contradictory, yet coexistent, anticolonial and postcolonial modes of politics adopted by Hamas following the organization''s unexpected victory in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council election. Despite the expectations of experts, Hamas has persisted as both an armed resistance to Israeli settler colonial rule and as a governing body. Based on ethnographic material collected in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Israel, and Egypt, Decolonizing Palestine argues that the puzzle Hamas presents is not rooted in predicting the timing or process of its abanTrade ReviewSen's work, Decolonizing Pelestine - Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial is a powerful and well-argued presentation on Hamas' actions in Gaza. At the same time, he very thoughtfully extends his arguments as being part of the global system of settler-colonialism. * The Palestine Chronicle *The most refreshing aspect of Sen's book is that it adopts as its starting point the premise that Hamas is a movement fighting against Zionist settler colonialism and in so doing, against efforts, prevalent in the literature on the movement, to view Hamas as somehow exceptional or external to the Palestinian cause. By complicating the linear view of liberation, Sen does us the service of illustrating, using Hamas as a case study, that liberation is messy, iterative, and unpredictable. * The Middle East Journal *Decolonizing Palestine is a brilliant ethnography inquiring about the anticolonial violence and postcolonial statecraft in Palestine from the prism of the experience of Israel's settler colonialism in Gaza. [T]he volume provides a significant theoretical contribution to postcolonial studies by offering interesting insights into the ways in which a transnational discussion on the struggle for liberation can be framed, potentially connecting anticolonial and postcolonial experiences of people around the world fighting for their liberation in a meaningful process of exchange, solidarity and mutual learning. * The International Spectator *This tension between the forging of governmental authority by a nationalist bourgeoisie and a continuing anticolonial campaign, a liberationist struggle that spills over the bounds of nationalism, is at the heart of Somdeep Sen's thoughtful and generous Decolonizing Palestine. * The AAG Review of Books *This book offers a unique analysis of what is for many a puzzling area of Middle East politics:Hamas and its apparent, persistent motivations for violent conflict. Sen spent three years researching and listening in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and the region, and this effort is reflected in the very high quality of the work. Sen has given us a remarkably clear theoretical basis for understanding the contradictions of Hamas as both a resistance force and a nascent agent of governance. * Middle East Policy *Decolonizing Palestine serves as a corrective to accounts that imagine Hamas or Gaza as the main stumbling block in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict resolution attempts.Sen creates space to think about internal Palestinian politics independently, as well as in a global context that extends beyond Israel. * International Affairs *Table of Contents1. Decolonizing Palestine: An Introduction 2. On the Settler Colonial Elimination of Palestine 3. Palestinian Postcoloniality: A Legacy of the Oslo Accords 4. Anticolonial Violence and the Palestinian Struggle to Exist 5. Postcolonial Governance: Imagining Palestine 6. The Palestinian Moment of Liberation 7. On Liberation

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Book SynopsisThe revolutionary wave that swept the Middle East in 2011 was marked by spectacular mobilization, spreading within and between countries with extraordinary speed. Several years on, however, it has caused limited shifts in structures of power, leaving much of the old political and social order intact. In this book, noted author Asef Bayat—whose Life as Politics anticipated the Arab Spring—uncovers why this occurred, and what made these uprisings so distinct from those that came before. Revolution without Revolutionaries is both a history of the Arab Spring and a history of revolution writ broadly. Setting the 2011 uprisings side by side with the revolutions of the 1970s, particularly the Iranian Revolution, Bayat reveals a profound global shift in the nature of protest: as acceptance of neoliberal policy has spread, radical revolutionary impulses have diminished. Protestors call for reform rather than fundamental transformation. By tracing the contours and illuminating the meaning of the 2011 uprisings, Bayat gives us the book needed to explain and understand our post–Arab Spring world.Trade Review"An astute analyst of the Middle East, Asef Bayat is one of the very few researchers equipped to historicize the region's contemporary uprisings. In Revolution without Revolutionaries, he deftly and sympathetically employs his own observations of Iran, immediately before and after the 1979 revolution, to reflect on the epochal shifts that have re-worked the political regimes, economic structures, and revolutionary imaginaries across the region today." -- Arang Keshavarzian * New York University *"Asef Bayat is in the vanguard of a subtle and original theorization of social movements and social change in the Middle East. His attention to the lives of the urban poor, his extensive field work in very different countries within the region, and his ability to see over the horizon of current paradigms make his work essential reading." -- Juan Cole * University of Michigan *"Asef Bayat provocatively questions the Arab Spring's apparent moderation, tracing its softness to decades of neoliberalism that have undermined the national state and discarded old-fashioned forms of revolutionary violence. This groundbreaking book is not an obituary for the Arab Spring but a hopeful glimpse at its future." -- Olivier Roy * author of The Failure of Political Islam *"[T]his is a serious book that compares and explains the differences between previous Middle East and global revolutions and those of the last decade. A good scholarly contribution. Recommended" -- J. P. Dunn * Choice *"Asef Bayat's impressive Revolution Without Revolutionaries tries to explain why nearly all the exhilarating uprisings in the Middle East eventually failed...Bayat is not the first scholar to tackle this issue, the field of Middle East studies having offered up its share of autopsies, but his lucid and readable account does provide the most plausible explanation. In the end, revolutions cannot succeed without leaders who have spent decades in oppositional politics honing their ideology and sharpening their strategy." -- Survival"Asef Bayat, famed for his Life as Politics (2010, 2013), presents us with a rich theoretical and empirical study of the 2011 revolutions colloquially known as the "Arab Spring" in Revolution without Revolutionaries...Bayat, an Iran-born, US-based sociologist from a working-class background who has a deep observational capacity to see and remember things as they unfolded in his own - first village - and then in the working-class Tehran neighbourhood where he grew up...The book would be of great value to scholars interested in revolutions, social movements, graduate students, and researchers of the Middle East politics." -- Habibul Haque Khondker * Canadian Journal of Sociology *"...[T]his book not only provides a persuasive account of the Arab Spring and its aftermath, but it demonstrates the trajectory of social movements and activism under neoliberal hegemony on a global scale. It is an accessible and engaging read, one that will benefit activists as well as social movement scholars." -- Simin Fadaee * Social Movement Studies *"This is the kind of book that gives you an appetite to read it from cover to cover on a park bench or a beach. Revolutions without Revolutionaries deals with regions of the world that continue to dominate news headlines of major news outlets and which politicians build careers demonizing. The author brings an unprecedented, distinct perspective to elucidate and analyze the misconstrued perceptions and representations of these largely unknown Middle East and North Africa (MENA) states. He is a keen observer of the social and political life in its complexities and dynamism." -- Sam Cherribi * Social Forces *"Drawing upon comparison with the revolutionary movements of the 1970s...the author brings a rich repertoire of concepts and sociological theories to bear on his explanation....[H]is writing is surprisingly accessible and interspersed with sufficient historical context and ethnographic details that it should find a wider audience among those with interest in understanding the contemporary politics of the Arab region and contentious politics beyond the region." -- Michaelle Browers * Middle East Journal *"Revolution without Revolutionaries is compelling, important, accessible to a general readership and is a must-read for those interested in Middle Eastern studies, revolutionary movements, sociology and history, Political Islam, and, above all, for readers considering how neoliberalism affects our world today. Furthermore, there is an honesty and vulnerability that I have rarely seen so openly in academics' works that makes Bayat's latest all the more relatable." -- Pouya Alimagham * Social History *"A laudable book: it deploys a distinctive analytical approach that yields a compelling narrative of the Arab uprisings. The volume will be particularly useful to readers new to Bayat's work, since it offers a cumulative presentation of his signature notions of post-Islamism, nonmovements, and "refolution," in addition to his focus on urban space." -- Marwan M. Kraidy * Current History *"One of the most significant and lasting achievements of the Arab revolutions, as Bayat points out, is the 'change in consciousness' marked by the brutal interruption on the political scene of both conservative and liberal ideas in debates as impassioned as they were unprecedented." -- Alain Gresh * Orient XXI *"What makes Bayat's account different is the connection he makes between revolution and everyday life. He contests the conventional wisdom in the sociology of revolution that tends to tie revolution to a set of extraordinary sociopolitical events. Revolutionary moments are, rather, nested in the ordinary nature of our lives. Bayat's description of the order of events in the period before the Arab Spring demonstrates how a plethora of small-scale incidents of protest gave birth to the spirit of rebellion." -- Ahmad Mohammadpour * Middle East Policy *"Bayat addresses a prevailing tendency in contemporary political thought: celebrations of radical democracy as process without adequate consideration of outcomes....He inventively redirects the anticipated source of political imaginaries from vanguards to ordinary people." -- Arash Davari * Political Thory *"Asef Bayat uses accessible language and style that engages the reader and asks her/him to actively participate and respond to the sensitive inquiries raised. Therefore, this book is highly recommended for students of sociology, anthropology, political science, and history, but also for a wider audience interested in Middle Eastern/Arab contemporary political affairs." -- Mina Ibrahim * KULT_online: Review Journal for the Study of Culture *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts1Revolutions of Wrong Times chapter abstractChapter 1 sets the broad historical and conceptual framework for historically locating the revolutions of the new millennium, including the Arab Spring and the Occupy movements, by comparing them to the radical revolutions of the 1970s, notably those in Iran, Yemen, and Nicaragua. It suggests that the Arab uprisings and the Occupy movements came to fruition in a different historical time dominated by neoliberal norms that disparaged the very idea of revolution, collectivist ideals, and distributionist justice. The result was "refolution," or revolutions with a nonradical outcome. 2Marx in the Islamic Revolution chapter abstractChapter 2 shows how the revolutions of the 1970s, unlike the Arab Spring, were informed by an intellectual component with socialist ideas as a major element. It focuses on the Iranian revolution of 1979 in which revolutionary ideas were articulated by Marxist and Islamic leftist guerrilla movements, as well as the "ideologue of the revolution," Ali Shariati. The revolution saw radical strategies and repertoires to which revolutionary ideas lent support. 3Revolution in the Everyday chapter abstractChapter 3 elaborates on the revolutions' radical repertoires and strategies by examining the widespread shura (council) movements for grassroots democracy and self-rule in the neighborhoods, colleges, farms, and workplaces, focusing on the occupation of factories. With the fragmentation of labor and the end of existing socialism, radical ideas began to lose their clout. 4Not a Theology of Liberation chapter abstractChapter 4 examines the deradicalization of political Islam, showing how the Islamist opposition evolved from its strong anti-imperialist and social justice propensity to embrace reformist politics and neoliberal economy. By the time the Arab uprisings occurred, most Islamists and secular counterparts had been conditioned by the neoliberal climate. The chapter shows that ISIS somehow represents Islamism of neoliberal times. 5Cities of Dissent chapter abstractDespite the decline in revolutionary projects, popular dissent grew as neoliberalism transformed the Arab economies and shaped an increasingly contentious urbanity. 6Square and Counter-Square chapter abstractChapter 6 examines how dissent found expression in the Arab cities' public spaces, in particular the Arab squares, during the uprisings. It addresses the question of what the urban locus of the uprisings tells us about their origin and dynamics and why certain spaces, such as squares, become the site of popular contention. It focuses on Cairo's Tahrir Square, Tunis's Bourguiba Boulevard, and Istanbul's Taksim Square as sites of street politics, exploring the regimes' "counter-square" strategies. 7The Spring of Surprise chapter abstractAlthough it was not unexpected that the uprisings took place in urban areas, their sudden and fierce eruption surprised both observers and activists. Chapter 7 explores the way in which Arab subaltern groups were involved in discreet everyday struggles to enhance their life chances under the shadow of an authoritarian government and neoliberal economy. They had created their own opaque and illegible realities, "uncivil societies," under the radar of the state and scholars. Their struggles, often in the form of nonmovements, assumed a collective voice once the protests began and merged into what came to be known as the Arab uprisings. Surprise also lay in their ideological makeup and political trajectories. 8Half Revolution, No Revolution chapter abstractChapter 8 examines the particular "refolutionary" character of the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Yemen, and Egypt, discussing their promise as well as their serious limitations in transforming into full-fledged revolutions. The chapter argues that what transpired in the Arab world were not revolutions in the sense of their twentieth-century counterparts but a mix of revolutionary mobilizations and reformist trajectories. To illustrate this, the chapter discusses the impact of neoliberal normativity on the thinking of the political class, both Islamists and non-Islamists. 9Radical Impulses of the Social chapter abstractWhile there was little change in the structure of state power and the old elites, things were different at the societal level. Chapter 9 shows that the extraordinary acts of claim making by the poor, women, lower-class youth, and social minorities in pursuit of equality, inclusion, and recognition radicalized these otherwise nonradical revolutions. 10The Agony of Transition chapter abstractChapter 10 discusses the contradictions of the postrevolutionary "transition." It demonstrates that the subaltern struggles discussed earlier made, in part, the postrevolutionary transition acutely contentious, reinforcing the painful and paradoxical postrevolutionary moments. The revolutions remained largely defenseless against the domestic and regional counterrevolution, which in turn had a devastating impact on efforts to achieve a just and free social order in Arab societies, feeding into the rising disenchantment with the experience and idea of revolution. 11Revolution and Hope chapter abstractChapter 11 discusses the question of despair that came to afflict so many activists in postrevolutionary moments and concludes by exploring grounds for hope and the renewal of a revolutionary spirit in the post<->Arab Spring Middle East.

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Book SynopsisOver the last three decades, a new generation of conceptual artists has come to the fore in the Arab Middle East. As wars, peace treaties, sanctions, and large-scale economic developments have reshaped the region, this cohort of cultural producers has also found themselves at the center of intergenerational debates on the role of art in society. Central to these cultural debates is a steady stream of support from North American and European funding organizations—resources that only increased with the start of the Arab uprisings in the early 2010s. The Politics of Art offers an unprecedented look into the entanglement of art and international politics in Beirut, Ramallah, and Amman to understand the aesthetics of material production within liberal economies. Hanan Toukan outlines the political and social functions of transnationally connected and internationally funded arts organizations and initiatives, and reveals how the production of art within global frameworks can contribute to hegemonic structures even as it is critiquing them—or how it can be counterhegemonic even when it first appears not to be. In so doing, Toukan proposes not only a new way of reading contemporary art practices as they situate themselves globally, but also a new way of reading the domestic politics of the region from the vantage point of art.Trade Review"There are few books out there that bring together a deep, critical knowledge of the arts in the Middle East with theoretical sophistication and shimmering ethnographic observations. Hanan Toukan's The Politics of Art does this abundantly, and it does so in beautiful, absorbing prose, with great care and tenderness."—Laleh Khalili, Queen Mary University of London"The Politics of Art is a game changer. Hanan Toukan brilliantly reveals a critical, often hidden component of art-making in the Middle East: how powerful political and economic interests have shaped what kinds of art are even possible. A brave intervention and required reading for anyone working in the fields of cultural politics and diplomacy."—Jessica Winegar, Northwestern University"In a detailed, revealing, and thought-provoking sociological account, Hanan Toukan explores how a contemporary art scene in Amman, Beirut, and Ramallah grew under the patronage of Western-funded NGOs alongside rising inequality. In these circumstances, might an idealistic commitment to diversity and decolonization produce a new form of homogeneity and domination?"—Julian Stallabrass, Courtauld Institute of Art"The Politics of Art is a dissonant account of how art, without recognition of its ties with power, upholds the very structures it claims to critique."—Ophelia Lai, ArtAsiaPacific"The Politics of Art is beautifully written and engages the relevant literatures from mainstream debates to more critical thinkers from the Frankfurt School to Rancière and Foucault. Written without jargon, the book is both theoretically sophisticated and accessible.... The book will be of interest not only to larger debates not only on cultural production but also on the diverse effects of neoliberalism, political dissent, the politics of urban space, and foreign development aid."—Jillian Schwedler, Perspectives on Politics"Overall, the book moves with a mocking spirit that tickles the funny bone at the same time that it hurts. As a Palestinian reader, one identifies with many things the author addresses, and one even smiles sometimes when reading specific sentences that make perfect sense, however painful."—Maysoon Shibi, Critical Inquiry"By rendering the implicit explicit, Toukan's text speaks to the quiet anxieties of both artists and academics who navigate international funding regimes, offering an important and highly interdisciplinary contribution to understandings of soft power and the politics of cultural production."—Melissa Scott, H-AMCA"The Politics of Art is, in short, a path-clearing work that should point the way for a new generation of art, performance, and music researchers to propose other formulations of the political by which to read, appreciate, and be in conversation with their performing and multidisciplinary artist contemporaries in the Mashriq."—Rayya El Zein, International Journal of Middle East StudiesTable of ContentsIntroduction: n/a 1. Cultural Wars and the Politics of Diplomacy 2. "An Artist Who Cannot Speak English Is No Artist" 3. The Dissonance of Dissent: Art and Artists after 1990 4. Beirut: The Rise and Rise of Postwar Art 5. Amman: Uneasy Lie the Arts 6. Ramallah: The Paintbrush Is Mightier than the M16 Conclusion: n/a

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Book SynopsisIn 2010, the world's wealthiest art institution, the J. Paul Getty Museum, found itself confronted by a century-old genocide. The Armenian Church was suing for the return of eight pages from the Zeytun Gospels, a manuscript illuminated by the greatest medieval Armenian artist, Toros Roslin. Protected for centuries in a remote church, the holy manuscript had followed the waves of displaced people exterminated during the Armenian genocide. Passed from hand to hand, caught in the confusion and brutality of the First World War, it was cleaved in two. Decades later, the manuscript found its way to the Republic of Armenia, while its missing eight pages came to the Getty. The Missing Pages is the biography of a manuscript that is at once art, sacred object, and cultural heritage. Its tale mirrors the story of its scattered community as Armenians have struggled to redefine themselves after genocide and in the absence of a homeland. Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh follows in the manuscript's footsteps through seven centuries, from medieval Armenia to the killing fields of 1915 Anatolia, the refugee camps of Aleppo, Ellis Island, and Soviet Armenia, and ultimately to a Los Angeles courtroom. Reconstructing the path of the pages, Watenpaugh uncovers the rich tapestry of an extraordinary artwork and the people touched by it. At once a story of genocide and survival, of unimaginable loss and resilience, The Missing Pages captures the human costs of war and persuasively makes the case for a human right to art.Trade Review"In this compelling and original work, Heghnar Watenpaugh traces the dramatic and epic journey of a sacred work of art. The Missing Pages brings together an understanding of the deeper layers of culture and history with the ethical issues surrounding art, identity, and ownership."—Peter Balakian, author of The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response"Heghnar Watenpaugh is a superb scholar and rare sleuth. But what makes The Missing Pages truly remarkable is her gift of storytelling. This is a book with the soul of language—moving, affirming, illuminating."—Mark Arax, author of The Dreamt Land: Chasing Dust and Water Across California"Heghnar Watenpaugh writes with colorful prose and deep historical texture. The Missing Pages adds much to how we understand the written word in medieval Armenia, as well as the tragic events surrounding the Genocide itself."—Eric Bogosian, author of Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide"In the fracturing of the Zeytun Gospels, Heghnar Watenpaugh captures the everlasting violence of genocide as it shears and slices into human lives across time and place. Written with both erudition and passion, The Missing Pages is a labor of love and a must-read for anyone concerned with the human right to art."—Fatma Müge Göçek, author of Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence against the Armenians, 1789-2009"The Missing Pages is a well-told tale of the history of the Armenian people. Heghnar Watenpaugh takes us on a wondrous and terrifically engrossing journey of this sacred religious object and priceless work of art."—Michael Bazyler, author of Holocaust Justice: The Battle for Restitution in America's Courts"In The Missing Pages, Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh tells the gripping story of the Zeytun Gospels, a 'survivor object' that bears the traces of centuries of Armenian history and culture. Moving across eras and national borders, Watenpaugh's powerful narrative offers a unique perspective on the fate of cultural heritage in the face of genocide and denial. An essential book for all who are concerned with art, human rights, and post-traumatic resilience."—Michael Rothberg, author of Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization"[Watenpaugh's] book alerts us to the urgent moral and political questions still to be addressed even in the rarefied world of the museum and the library: she forces us to attend to the human agonies, cultural calamities, and moral ambiguities that lie behind many apparently tranquil museum exhibits."—Eamon Duffy, The New York Review of Books"[A] gripping, and at times unsettling, history of what is known as the Zeytun Gospels, a lavishly illuminated Armenian book that miraculously survived centuries of war, conquest and dispossession.In addition to supplying an important account of a celebrated object, Ms. Watenpaugh has written an impassioned polemic. She invites us to consider how the 'power of curation,' as well as the publicity and wealth attendant upon modern museum culture, can transform an object of specific liturgical use into a highly valued work of art, and what that might mean for all involved."—Ernest Hilbert, The Wall Street Journal"The Missing Pages is a work that only Watenpaugh could write with her mastery of Arabic, Turkish, and especially Western Armenian....[She] is certain to attract the attention of scholars outside her field promising to usher forth a conversation about the relationship between cultural heritage and human rights."—Elyse Semerdjian, Critical Inquiry"The Missing Pages... takes up issues of both more recent and long-standing art historical concern and, insofar as it is a narrative that unfolds between legal charges and settlement, as a whole adds real substance and nuance to debates on provenance and repatriation."—Lisa Mahoney, Manuscript Studies"The history of the [Zeytun Gospels] manuscript, which spans the better part of a millennium, represents a compelling example of why provenance research can also serve the cause of historical justice... [Watenpaugh] further discusses the need for museums to come to terms with the complicated and often controversial trajectories by which the objects they enshrine as art made their ways to their institutional homes, and how they also therefore speak with very human voices not only of terrible tragedy but also of the inseparable links between memory and material relics."—Jeffrey F. Hamburger, West 86th"It is hoped that The Missing Pages will contribute to and inform the ongoing debate over survivor objects and the positionality of the contemporary scholar with regard to contested pasts."—Sergio La Porta, The American Historical Review"Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh has achieved the nearly impossible in this book. The volume is the fruit of extensive and profound scholarship, covering a variety of historical periods and geographical milieux... But the scholarship and historical expertise are worn lightly; and the author has succeeded in presenting the rather entangled history of a manuscript with clarity and passion. The result is accessible, highly readable, and may be enjoyed by the general reader as well as those with more specialised interests."—Haig Utidjian, Clavibus UnitisTable of Contents1. Survivor Objects. Artifacts of Genocide 2. Hromkla. The God-Protected Castle of Priests and Artists 3. Zeytun. The Lost World of Ottoman Armenians 4. Marash. The Holy Book Bears Witness 5. Aleppo. Survivors Reclaim Their Heritage 6. New York. The Zeytun Gospels Enters Art History 7. Yerevan. Toros Roslin, Artist of the Armenian Nation 8. Los Angeles. The Contest over Art

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Book SynopsisThis book initiates the reader into the study of Akkadian literature from ancient Babylonia and Assyria. With this one relatively short volume, the novice reader will develop the literary competence necessary to read and interpret Akkadian texts in translation and will gain a broad familiarity with the major genres and compositions in the language.The first part of the book presents introductory discussions of major critical issues, organized under four key rubrics: tablets, scribes, compositions, and audiences. Here, the reader will find descriptions of the tablets used as writing material; the training scribes received and the institutional contexts in which they worked; the general characteristics of Akkadian compositions, with an emphasis on poetic and literary features; and the various audiences or users of Akkadian texts. The second part surveys the corpus of Akkadian literature defined inclusively, canvasing a wide spectrum of compositions. Legal codes, historical inscriptions, divinatory compendia, and religious texts have a place in the survey alongside narrative poems, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enuma elish, and Babylonian Theodicy. Extensive footnotes and a generous bibliography guide readers who wish to continue their study.Essential for students of Assyriology, An Introduction to Akkadian Literature will also prove useful to biblical scholars, classicists, Egyptologists, ancient historians, and literary comparativists. Trade Review“A study that renders Akkadian literature accessible to a different readership.”—Nathan Wasserman Review of Biblical LiteratureTable of ContentsContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments AbbreviationsPrologueIntroductionAkkadian: Linguistic, Geographical, and Chronological ParametersAn Overview of the Textual Record1. Prolegomena to the Study of Akkadian Literature Tablets: From Excavation to TranslationScribes: Contextualizing Literary ProductionCompositions: General IssuesAudiences: Who Read These Texts?2. Survey of Selected Text GroupsMythological and Heroic EpicsLegends of Akkadian KingsHistoriographical TextsLegal and Political DocumentsDivination: Deductive and IntuitiveOther Scholarly TextsPrayers, Incantations, Incantation- Prayers, Laments, and HymnsMeditations on Human Suffering and the DivineProverbs, Advice, Dialogues, and DebatesSatire, Parody, and HumorConclusion: The Future of Akkadian LiteratureBibliographyIndex

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisExplores the social, cultural, legal and religious changes that occurred in Oman during the reign of Sultan Qaboos

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Book SynopsisAn inside look at al-Qaeda from 9/11 to the death of its founder—told through the words of Bin Laden and those in his closest circleTrade Review“A comprehensive, meticulously constructed and eye-opening look at bin Laden as husband, father and leader-in-hiding. . . . An engaging and persuasive read.”—Karen J. Greenberg, Washington Post“A groundbreaking book [and] a remarkable insider account of al-Qaeda’s history, based on the writings of bin Laden and his inner circle.”—Peter Spiegel, Financial Times“A revelatory book.”—Steve Coll, New Yorker“This eye-opening book—based on information recovered from Osama bin Laden’s hard drive after his death in the raid on his Abbottabad hideaway—is the first real inside look into his mind and an organisation that changed how we live.”—Sunday Times, “50 Best Books for the Sunlounger”“Never less than gripping. . . . [Offers] an extraordinary insight into the inner workings of al-Qaeda, both before and after 9/11, and lays bare the terrorist organisation’s closely guarded plans, ambitions and frustrations.”—Saul David, Sunday Telegraph“The corrective insights contained in this excellent readable book merit careful attention by scholars, policy makers, soldiers, and our political leadership.”—Justin Doherty, Aspects of History“[A] fascinating book—the first real inside look into an organisation that changed how we live. . . . It is astonishing to have such a picture of the inner workings of a terrorist group.”—Christina Lamb, Sunday Times“Lahoud yields fascinating insights from these primary sources about the organization, its leaders and the competing worldviews and priorities of its members.”—Mariana Vieira, International Affairs“The Bin Laden Papers is a work of immense, exciting scholarship, and it sparkles with new insights about bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network. Crisply written by Nelly Lahoud, it is one of the most important histories of the war on terror.”—Peter Bergen, author of The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden“A masterful analysis and riveting story. As though finally cleaning a window obscured by years of grime, Nelly Lahoud’s The Bin Laden Papers clarifies a man and his movement that confused and confounded much of the world for decades.”—General (ret.) Stanley McChrystal, former Commander of United States Forces Afghanistan“Terrorist expert Nelly Lahoud reveals the hidden history of Al Qaeda in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The Bin Laden Papers paints a portrait of an ambitious and dedicated terrorist leader who is often out of touch with reality and unable to control the movement he helped spawn.”—Daniel Byman, author of Road Warriors: Foreign Fighters in the Armies of Jihad“Nelly Lahoud’s consummate analysis of 6,000 al-Qaeda documents is a prodigious and indispensable achievement. Deploying clinical understanding of political, religious, and family contexts, she provides a riveting inside account, the fullest likely ever to emerge, of the thoughts and motivations of a man and movement that have so malignly impacted our era.”—James Piscatori, coauthor of Islam Beyond Borders: The Umma in World Politics“A singular achievement that stands as the definitive and original account of the trajectory of al-Qaeda from 2001 to the death of Bin Laden. This clearly presented analysis draws on the author’s unique expertise to correct the record of Bin Laden and international terrorism post 9/11.”—Martha Crenshaw, coauthor of Countering Terrorism

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Book SynopsisMesopotamia produced one of the best-known ancient civilizations, with a literate, urban culture and highly-developed political institutions. In this fully revised and expanded edition of her classic text, Sumer and the Sumerians, Harriet Crawford reviews the extraordinary social and technological developments in the region from 3800 to 2000 BC. Drawing on the most up-to-date historical and archaeological sources, she provides a thematic exploration of this ancient civilization, examining its physical and historical background, changing settlement patterns, public and private architecture and cultural developments of the period. In this new edition, the chapter on Manufacturing Industries and Trade has been enlarged and divided into two chapters. In addition, a new chapter on the contemporary developments in Upper Mesopotamia is included. The final chapter reflects on the future of the heritage of Iraq in the aftermath of the second Gulf War.Trade Review'the real achievement of this slim book is that Crawford does not over-generalise, but leaves the reader with an understanding of both the broad patterns as well as the differences between regions in Mesopotamia and through time.' Bibliotheca OrientalisTable of Contents1. The rediscovery of the ancient Near East: the physical environment; 2. History, chronology and social organization; 3. Patterns of settlement and agriculture; 4. Town planning and temple architecture; 5. Public buildings and private housing; 6. Upper Mesopotamia; 7. Life, death and the meaning of the universe; 8. Manufacturing industries; 9. Trade; 10. Writing and the arts; 11. Conclusions.

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Book SynopsisYassin al-Haj Saleh is a leftist dissident who spent sixteen years as a political prisoner and now lives in exile. He describes with precision and fervour the events that led to Syria's 2011 uprising, the metamorphosis of the popular revolution into a regional war, and the 'three monsters' Saleh sees 'treading on Syria's corpse': the Assad regime and its allies, ISIS and other jihadists, and Russia and the US. Where conventional wisdom has it that Assad's army is now battling religious fanatics for control of the country, Saleh argues that the emancipatory, democratic mass movement that ignited the revolution still exists, though it is beset on all sides. 'The Impossible Revolution' is a powerful, compelling critique of Syria's catastrophic war, which has profoundly reshaped the lives of millions of Syrians.Trade Review'Saleh’s personal tragedy reveals him as an authentic voice trying to understand how the genuine, progressive revolt he supported went so horribly wrong.' -- New York Review of Books'Reading The Impossible Revolution, a Western audience has the opportunity to eavesdrop on the conversation that has been going on between Syrians since the beginning of the conflict ... If Saleh had been read by Westerners at the time of his writing, for example, ISIS would not have come as such a surprise.' -- Times Literary Supplement'"Where is cool-headed, clear thinking to be found, in a world of al-Sada, jinn, and ghosts?" ... One might say it is to be found in the pages of [Saleh's] book, where he examines the origins of the violence, delves into the ideology of the Ba'ath Party that has ruled the country since 1963, methodically dissects the phases of the revolution, and charts the lurch into sectarianism ... [in] carefully modulated prose' -- The New York Review of Books'Yassin al-Haj Saleh [is] arguably Syria’s most important living intellectual . . . [a] luminous volume of essays.'‘A nuanced look at the Syrian struggle from one of Syria’s foremost leftist thinkers.’ 'Yassin al-Haj Saleh is one of Syria's most important contemporary political theorists and public intellectuals. Saleh, whose work is widely known and circulated in Arabic, has been a hugely influential participant in important debates concerning modernity, governance, identity, and society in Syria. Since the start of the Syrian uprising, Saleh's influence and his role as an incisive critic of extremism, dictatorship, and the effects of mass violence on Syrian society have offered powerful and compelling responses to the traumas that define the contemporary Syrian experience.' * Steven Heydemann, Professor of Middle East Studies at Smith College and the author of Authoritarianism in Syria: Institutions and Social Conflict, 1946-1970 *‘In its lucidity, erudition, range and percipience, the book is worthy of a Gramsci. In its method, rigour and predictions, it is an intellectual achievement of extraordinary significance . . . Yassin al-Haj Saleh, one of Syria's most celebrated intellectuals . . . writes with remarkable dispassion and objectivity . . . Saleh's work will stand as an imperishable reminder of the circumstances through which this impossible revolution endured.’ 'A subjective but insightful account of how totalitarianism has destroyed civil society and wrecked Syria.' -- Bloomberg'Penetrating analysis . . . indispensable.''A searing and heartfelt critique of a crisis which is no longer just Syria’s, but the world’s. Born in Raqqa and imprisoned under the Assads for sixteen years, Yassin al-Haj Saleh is now recognised as ‘the conscience of the Syrian Revolution.’ No other voice has such clarity or integrity.' -- Diana Darke, author of 'My House in Damascus: An Inside View of the Syrian Crisis''Saleh takes us on a personal journey through the ecstasy and the heartbreak of Syria’s revolution and the many struggles the country has faced since. Syria’s revolution began as an organic peaceful movement seeking simple and reasonable goals, but as Saleh explains, it soon spawned conflicting, violent and dangerous complexities that sadly now dominate public discourse and on-the-ground dynamics. There is no better voice to tell this book’s many important stories and Saleh’s words are likely to live on for years to come.' -- Charles Lister, author of 'The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, The Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency''The appearance of Yassin al-Haj Saleh’s work in English has been long awaited. It’s vitally important to listen to Syrian voices on the events which are happening in their country. Yassin is one of Syria’s most engaging revolutionary thinkers, and he provides valuable context to a democratic revolution and vicious counter-revolution which has often been wilfully misunderstood by commentators in the West. Expert analysis and powerful personal testimony are interwoven in this book which is indispensable for anyone wishing to further their understanding of the Syrian tragedy.' -- Leila Al Shami, co-author of 'Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War'

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Book SynopsisTraces the dynamic history of Iraq in the 20th century and reinserts the modern remnants of these peoples into its day-to-day concerns.

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Book SynopsisThe Iranian Revolution of 1979 was a turning-point in modern history. The destruction of the Iranian monarchy not only upset the political order in the Middle East and brought on a quarter-century of warfare, but introduced a new way to look at history. In Days of God James Buchan lives each moment of the revolution through the eyes of ordinary people as he tries to answer his own troubling question: why did his friends, with their peculiar Iranian dreaminess and charm, act the way they did?Trade Review'James Buchan trains a more scientific eye on how Iran's wealth-creator king was replaced with a Shia divine uninterested in modern government. He mines the literature in Persian and English to better effect than any historian so far . . . Why did the shah's subjects not accept his notion of history racing to a conclusion in prosperity's glow? In this fine, elegantly written book, Mr Buchan lays out the answer in detail' * The Economist *'Marvellous book. It is hard to imagine anyone else possessing the combination of qualities Buchan brings. He has the journalist's analytical eye and the novelist's imagination . . . He can segue between the theology of Qom and the gossip of the Shah's improvised, petrodollar-funded Versailles, swooping all the while onto details either grim or hilarious or both at once that leave the reader scratching his head and wondering how the author can know so much . . . It is written with the ancient historian's ambition - the ambition that Gibbon, Macaulay and Marx would recognise - that the record of humanity's blunders and bloodbaths and half-understandings should itself be an object of elegance and ironic beauty' * Francis Spufford, Evening Standard *'Buchan's prose is excellent, with the vocabulary, range and atmosphere of a literary master, the clout of the sharp historian, and the ability to leaven history with fascinating snippets of intimate information, delightful, droll or horrifying. His research is thorough . . . This is a compelling, beautifully written history of a country which has produced great literature, art and a warm people whose lives have been manipulated by other countries with ulterior motives and by their own autocratic and theocratic dictators' * Independent *'This book comes alive with a wonderfully detailed and authoritative account of the Shah's final days and the murder and mayhem that followed' * The Spectator *'Sharply written and persuasive . . . Days of God offers a number of valuable, if frightening insights' * Scotsman *'Buchan enlists all his narrative skill, learning and panache in this story of modern Iran' * i *Praise for James Buchan:'James Buchan writes like a dream' * The Times *'A succinct elegant book, written in an easy, conversational tone which never makes its big ideas or profound implications seem intimidating' * Sunday Telegraph *'James Buchan's elegant prose sparkles on the page' * New Statesman *'Combines deft broad strokes with intricate details, shading in apparent dry subjects with innumerable and delightful anecdotes' * The Economist *'A soundly argued account of the causes, course and consequences of the revolution . . . Buchan, a Persian scholar and former Financial Times foreign correspondent, puts his first-hand experience of Iran to perceptive use' * Financial Times *'A superb and original history of the Iranian Revolution. It's essential reading' * Simon Sebag Montefiore, Mail on Sunday Books of the Year 2012 *'Buchan is capable of delivering assessment of stark precision' * Sunday Telegraph *'An elegant and textured analysis' * The Economist *'Buchan has a sure touch with narrative. Days of God is skilfully constructed, deftly weaving a path through the thickets of complex events while displaying the wider historical background against which this political earthquake was staged' * Literary Review *Rejecting theory, Buchan relies on old-fashioned virtues: a careful reading of the Persian and foreign sources, his immersion in the country's culture (he was a star Persionist at Oxford) and an instinct for the events and personalities that turned Iran from Middle East poster boy to society in upheaval. Buchan brings a keen, satirical eye to the story of a corrupt, intrigue-ridden court and a modernising Shah who cut through traditional Iran as if "the conflicts of centuries were being squeezed into half a dozen years" * Prospect *Elegant and pugnacious * Daily Telegraph *His story of the revolution is the best book on Iran I have ever read. He has the pen of the travel writer Robert Byron, and a trove of Persian poetry and lore shines from every page. Shafts of insight alternate with piercing wit, and his ironic dissection of both the shah and the ayatollah would do credit to Gibbon * Sunday Times *An outstanding analysis of the legacy of Iran's revolution * Sunday Times *Buchan's story of the Iranian revolution is the best book on Iran I have ever read * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisA social history of everyday family life in the Ottoman Empire, this book offers a groundbreaking examination of the relations between and transformations of family, property, and gender regimes. In addition to offering an analysis of a wide variety of sources, it also challenges prevailing assumptions about modern Middle Eastern societies.Trade Review'Beshara Doumani's Family Life in the Ottoman Mediterranean is a mature work built on painstaking scholarship that breaks conventions in both family and legal history; moreover, it covers a period for which documentation is difficult and historiographic cliché abundant. Doumani combines control of juridical doctrine (the rules of the game) with longitudinal case material from the shariʿa court records to describe contrasting patterns of family life and property devolution in two major provincial towns - Tripoli and Nablus. The research tackles radical questions: how to explain major divergence in patterns of women's entitlement under the same legal tradition, and how to document and to conceptualize political economies of family-property in such a way as to explain real difference under the law?' Martha Mundy, Professor Emeritus, London School of Economics and Political Science'In his superb social history of the differing property strategies pursued by Muslim families in contrasting Levantine settings, Beshara Doumani, our leading reader of the essential sources - the litigation records, wills and contracts preserved in the registers of the shariʿa courts - addresses pre-modern forms of estate planning based on the venerable Islamic legal institution of the private, or family endowment, and also makes important new observations concerning the agency of women.' Brinkley Messick, Columbia University, New York'Brilliantly capturing the determined will of women to master their own fate, control family property, and live comfortable lives, Beshara Doumani's comparative study of waqf and property devolution in Nablus and Tripoli from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries breaks through court cases to reveal how micro struggles over kinship and power expose the macro foundations of law and society of that period - and lay the foundation for the tools of modern state governance.' Suad Joseph, Distinguished Professor, University of California, Davis'… an outstanding contribution to Ottoman and Middle Eastern social history. It is also a testimony to the intellectual gains that come from painstaking and labor intensive research … This book is essential, and delightful, reading for anyone interested in the history of the family, of gender and of property regimes in the Middle East, as well as the social history of the Ottoman Empire.' Molly Greene, Middle East Journal'This book is the starting point for researchers interested in Sharia court records in Greater Syria (1650–1850). Numerous charts, genealogical tables, maps, photos, and an appendix that discusses and indexes the court records of Tripoli and Nablus enrich the text. This sophisticated, fine-grained study is meant for advanced students and specialists. Recommended.' J. Tallon, Choice'Doumani's tightly knit argument for the historical dynamism and flexibility of Islamic legal traditions and against monolithic and unchanging notions of family and gender in the Ottoman Mediterranean is a remarkable achievement.' Najwa al-Qattan, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History'The book is a significant contribution to the newly emerging field in Middle Eastern studies that examines the political economy of family and household formation through long-term comparative analysis of demographic and legal resources … The rich and diverse bibliography and extensive notes make the book essential for students of family, gender and legal history.' Efe Erünal, Continuity and Change'… it makes a significant contribution to the historiography on law in the Ottoman domains.' Guy Burak, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East'… Doumani's study makes crucial contributions to the study of the family and kinship in the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond … Doumani's book opens space for further use of these records, especially to learn more about Islamic legal history and the relation of sharia, state, and community.' Nada Moumtaz, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East'… the beauty of Doumani's book is that he insists on the productive labor of both quantitative and qualitative methods … The success of his book stands as a reminder of the cost of one-size-fits-all PhD timelines and evaluation standards that emphasize quantity over quality.' Julia Stephens, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East'Doumani's book is extremely insightful … constitutes a significant landmark in the family and social histories of the Ottoman Middle East.' Iris Agmon, Journal of Levantine StudiesTable of Contents1. Maryam's final word; 2. Hamida's children come of age: the shariʿa court and its archives; 3. The different designs of Husayn and ʿAbd al-Wahid: the waqf as a family charter; 4. Good deeds: the family waqf as a social act; 5. Who's in? Who's out? The waqf as a boundary marker; 6. Property and gender: the political economy of difference; 7. Fatima's determination; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisThe First World War in the Middle East is an accessibly written military and social history of the clash of world empires in the Dardanelles, Egypt and Palestine, Mesopotamia, Persia and the Caucasus. Coates Ulrichsen demonstrates how wartime exigencies shaped the parameters of the modern Middle East, and describes and assesses the major campaigns against the Ottoman Empire and Germany involving British and imperial troops from the French and Russian Empires, as well as their Arab and Armenian allies. Also documented are the enormous logistical demands placed on host societies by the Great Powers' conduct of industrialised warfare in hostile terrain. The resulting deepening of imperial penetration, and the extension of state controls across a heterogeneous sprawl of territories, generated a powerful backlash both during and immediately after the war, which played a pivotal role in shaping national identities as the Ottoman Empire was dismembered. This is a multidimensional account of the many seemingly discrete yet interlinked campaigns that resulted in one to one and a half million casualties.It details not just their military outcome but relates them to intelligence-gathering, industrial organisation, authoritarianism and the political economy of empires at war.Trade Review'This is a splendid book we have long been waiting for: the first comprehensive account of the fierce fighting all over the Middle East during World War One. As good on the logistical nightmares facing military planners in a region with few proper road and rail communications as it is on the set-piece battles at Gallipoli, Gaza and up and down the Tigris in Iraq.' -- Roger Owen, A.J. Meyer Professor of Middle East History, and author of The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for LifeA welcome overview of the Great War in the Middle East. ... Ulrichsen manages to achieve a comprehensive synthesis of the military and diplomatic history of the war. Moreover, he captures the full extent of the conflict in the Middle East, from skirmishes in Aden to the Turco-Sanussi campaign against the British in the western deserts of Egypt. ... Its clarity and its concision will make this work of use to scholars of the Great War and the emergence of the modern Middle East alike.' -- Eugene Rogan, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of Oxford, and author of The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East, 1914-1920'In this concise yet deeply researched book, Ulrichsen seeks to correct widely held Western misperceptions about WWI and its role in staging the collapse of the Islamic Caliphate and the resultant shaping of arbitrary Middle Eastern borders. ... Relevant for anyone with an interest in the Middle East.' -- Publishers Weekly'...fascinating and insightful ... the most comprehensive single-volume history of the war in the Middle East available today. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen's The First World War in the Middle East presents readers with a single-volume, multidisciplinary history of the war across the entire region, and it does so brilliantly, filling an otherwise glaring gap in the subject's literature.' -- Middle East Policy'In this meticulously researched, engaging book, Kristian Coates Ulrichsen explores the devastating consequences of the Great War for the Middle East and the battles fought there on behalf of the European belligerents, as well as the lasting imprints of the War on the region's political geography. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Middle East and the study of the formation of modern state-system in the region.' -- Mehran Kamrava, author of The Modern Middle East: A Political History since the First World War'This is a timely and important book. In an age when the post-war imperial political system across the region is being eroded by warfare and turmoil, it is indeed edifying to reflect on the causes and consequences of the First World War in the Middle East. The significance of this book lies in the fact that it is not merely a military history, but also excellently weaves together the differing European and Middle Eastern perspectives on the war, situating it in its proper geo-political context by examining not just the war itself, but also what preceded it, and, above all, what the war brought about in terms of socio-economic, cultural, and political transformations.' -- Johan Franzen, Senior Lecturer in Middle Eastern History, University of East Anglia, and author of Red Star Over Iraq: Iraqi Communism Before Saddam'Lively and compelling...gives a particularly thorough account of the diplomatic relations between the powers, and also of the ways in which policy was formulated within and between Britain, France and Russia, and by the Ottoman government.' -- International Affairs'Kristian Coates Ulrichsen's important study is the first account of the Middle East during the First World War. It is both very readable and a scholarly synthesis of the military, political and social history of the region as well as detailing the legacy of the war.' -- Alan Jeffreys, Senior Curator, Social History at the Imperial War Museum'Ulrichsen's valuable new book...underscores how soldiers and local civilian populations in the Middle East often suffered as much as those in Europe.' -- W. Andrew Terrill, Middle East Journal, 2014'A comprehensive and thoughtful overview of the region's major battles and their consequences grounded in the social realities of the time.' -- Elizabeth F Thompson, H-Diplo'...impressive ... Concise but comprehensive, this book deftly synthesizes accounts of the various military campaigns [in the Middle East] with broader analysis of its massive social, geopolitical and economic consequences.' -- William Armstrong, Hurriyet Daily News'The book is academically robust, detailed and well sourced. It is written in an accessible style and the index and chapter headings enable the reader who does not have the time to read from cover to cover to identify areas of specific interest.' -- The Arab Banker'This book is an extremely interesting overview of events in Palestine and the wider Middle East during World War I and the resulting peace settlement.' -- C.W. Squire, HM Ambassador to Israel 1984-88, The Overseas Pensioner

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Book SynopsisDrawing on insider interviews, journalists Maruf and Joseph recount the rise, fall, and resurgence of this overlooked terrorist organization.Trade ReviewFor military enthusiasts, Inside al-Shabaab has vivid descriptions of street-by-street fighting in Mogadishu as the extremists pushed the fragile Somali government to the edge of the sea. For those wondering how Somalia has never been able to shake off the threat, the book has piercing details of what still goes wrong both among Somalis and in the international community. * AP News *Featuring interviews with government officials, former al-Shabaab members, soldiers and numerous other sources, the authors leave no stone unturned in their quest to tell the story of just how al-Shabaab continues to operate and why it continues to attract young people. This is hugely informative painstakingly-researched book. * African Arguments *The book by Maruf and Joseph is a very readable, very informative and in passages thrilling account that provides partly unknown details for Somalia-specialists and a basis for reflection and comparison for counter-terrorism experts. Due to the style of writing, it is even accessible for interested non-specialists. The book is recommended strongly for thinking about and beyond the Somali setting. * African Affairs *Maruf and Josef, who are first-rate journalists, are to be congratulated on this work, which is tricky and somewhat dangerous. -- Kenneth Christie * ID: International Dialogue *Table of ContentsPart 1: Origins and Rise1. Jihad Arrives in Somalia2. The CIA, Warlords, and Ethiopia3. "The Real Jihad Has Just Started"4. Godane5. American Al-Shabaab6. Radical OrganizationPart 2: The Battle for Mogadishu7. "TFG IN GRAVE JEOPARDY"8. "We Want Anyone"9. Zenith and Stalemate10. The Ramadan Offensive 11. WithdrawalPart 3: On the Run12. Divisions and Purge13. The Road to Westgate14. No Place to HidePart 4: Resurgence15. Arresting the Decline16. The ISIS Incursion17. The Future of al-Shabab

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewPálffy offers a complex representation of the two centuries by not only depicting the military and political struggle for the liberation and the restoration of the unity of the Kingdom of Hungary. The result is a differentiated description of the developing institutions, infrastructure, economy, social structure and demographic development. -- Marta Fata * Sehepunkte *Written in an elegant and seductive way, well-balanced, with assessments that are not only unique, but also solidly argued, with an exceptional iconographic support (maps, illustrations etc.) wonderfully distributed throughout the book, professor Gèza Pálffy's book will surely impose itself as an original synthesis with a substantial echo among the readers who are both historians and history enthusiasts. -- Ionut Costea * Philobiblon *This important volume introduces English readers to one of the most critical periods of Central European history when "Hungary became the periphery and battleground of two empires, the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy." . . . Pálffy has written a masterpiece that goes well beyond introductory accounts so common in English-language academic publishing. The author provides both a window on the fascinating complexities of early modern Hungarian history as well as a refreshing reevaluation of traditional Hungarian historiography. In a more general sense, anyone interested in Central and Eastern Europe will appreciate how Pálffy illustrates the richness of Hungarian political, demographic, economic, and cultural developments. The book will benefit specialists, students, and general readers interested in the history of Hungary, its relationships with the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, and Hungary's place in early modern Europe. Students and scholars alike are well advised to put Pálffy's volume on their reading lists. -- Georg B. Michels * Hungarian Studies Review *Filling a glaring lacuna in the English-language literature on late medieval and early modern Hungary, Pálffy's study critically challenges modern scholarship in ways that feel both timely and relevant given the troubling political climate in modern Hungary and much of the West. -- Christopher M. Van Demark * Hungarian Cultural Studies *Pálffy has written a masterpiece that goes well beyond introductory ac- counts so common in English-language academic publishing. The author provides both a window on the fascinating complexities of early mod- ern Hungarian history as well as a refreshing reevaluation of traditional Hungarian historiography. In a more general sense, anyone interested in Central and Eastern Europe will appreciate how Pálffy illustrates the rich- ness of Hungarian political, demographic, economic, and cultural devel- opments. -- Georg B Michels - University of California * Hungarian Studies Review *Table of ContentsList of FiguresList of MapsList of TablesAcknowledgmentsNote on Terms and NamesList of AbbreviationsPolitical and Military Chronology, 1526–1711IntroductionPart I: Hungary after Mohács: A Century of Direction Seeking, 1526–16061. On the Frontier of Two Empires2. Roads from Istanbul to Vienna: The Ottomans in Hungary3. The Bumpy Road to Vienna: The Habsburgs and the Hungarians4. The Road to Istanbul: The State of King John Szapolyai and His Son5. On a Narrow Path: The Principality of Transylvania6. Society Finds Its Way7. The Economy and Its Roads to Europe8. The Search for a New Home: Ethnic and Demographic Changes9. Finding Faith: Hungary's New Religion10. Seeking a Language: A Cultural Golden Age11. Looking in Vain for a Way Out: The Long Turkish War, 1591–1606 Part II: Decay and Rejuvenation: The Janus-Faced Seventeenth Century, 1606–17111. Peace or Civil War on the Border of the Two Empires?2. New Ottoman Campaigns to Achieve an Old Goal3. The Rise of the Hungarian Estates and the Break with Vienna4. Transylvania Flourishes, Then Decays5. Militarization and Self-Administration: Changes in Society6. Economic Decline and Reorganization7. Hungarian Populations Fall—Other Ethnic Groups Rise8. The Revival of Catholicism—a Prolonged War of Religion9. Half a Century of Cultural Progress—Half a Century of Military Crisis10. A Country Liberated but Ravaged: The Long Turkish War, 1683–169911. Independence Movement and Civil War: The Rákóczi Uprising, 1703–1711GlossaryList of Rulers and Highest DignitariesSelect Bibliography (Monographs and Collected Studies)Name IndexPlace Index

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Book SynopsisColonizers continuously transform spaces of violence into spaces of home. Israeli Jews settle in the West Bank and in depopulated Palestinian houses in Haifa or Jaffa. White missionaries build their lives in Africa. The descendants of European settlers in the Americas and Australia dwell and thrive on expropriated indigenous lands. In The Colonizing Self Hagar Kotef traces the cultural, political, and spatial apparatuses that enable people and nations to settle on the ruins of other people''s homes. Kotef demonstrates how the mass and structural modes of violence that are necessary for the establishment and sustainment of the colony dwell within settler-colonial homemaking, and through it shape collective and individual identities. She thus powerfully shows how the possibility to live amid the destruction one generates is not merely the possibility to turn one''s gaze away from violence but also the possibility to develop an attachment to violence itself. Kotef thereby offers a Trade Review“Hagar Kotef has written a fierce, rigorous, intimate, unrelenting, account of settler colonialism. We who make our homes on stolen land live in the crevices of all-too-concrete structures of oppression. We turn our faces to the wall. Kotef faces what we too often ignore. This may be harshest in Israel where Kotef's book is set, but the import of the work goes beyond that site. Perhaps all homes are built on cruel exclusions and indefensible claims. Perhaps all homes shelter cruelties. Hagar Kotef's ability to raise these unsettling questions is admirable for its intellectual clarity and its courage.” -- Anne Norton, author of * On the Muslim Question *“An incredibly detailed and engaging study that illustrates Palestinian erasure from within the settler consciousness, the book brings forth an understanding from within that does much to bring the Palestinian trauma to the fore.” * Middle East Monitor *“The Colonizing Self is an incisive book about the dispossessor. In lyrical prose and through wide-ranging source material, Hagar Kotef traces the constitutive violence of settler colonialism.... Kotef’s book alerts us to the task of uprooting desires that secure settler colonialism.” -- Derek S. Denman * Political Theory *“Two intuitions inform this book about the Israeli ‘colonizing self ‘: one is about home, the other about violence. Taken together, these two intuitions converge on the understanding of the specific ways in which the settler’s identity consolidates, which is a crucial question and has been overlooked by scholars so far.” -- Lorenzo Veracini * Journal of Palestine Studies *“The ongoing challenge of decolonization . . . will inevitably require an unsettling of the very notion that the colonizer possesses a single self. Kotef ’s book is a critical milestone in this endeavor.” -- Noam Leshem * American Historical Review *Table of ContentsPreface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction: Home 1 Theoretical Overview: Violent Attachments 29 Part I. Homes Interlude. Home/Homelessness: A Reading in Arendt 55 1. The Consuming Self: On Locke, Aristotle, Feminist Theory, and Domestic Violences 73 Epilogue. Unsettlement 109 Part II. Relics Interlude. A Brief Reflection on Death and Decolonization 127 2. Home (and the Ruins That Remain) 137 Epilogue. A Phenomenology of Violence: Ruins 185 Part III. Settlement Interlude. A Moment of Popular Culture: The Home of MasterChef 203 3. On Eggs and Dispossession: Organic Agriculture and the New Settlement Movement 215 Epilogue. An Ethic of Violence: Organic Washing 251 Conclusion 261 Bibliography 267 Index 293

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Book SynopsisThis volume proposes a historical analysis of Italian-Libyan relations in contemporary times. After examining the colonialism of liberal Italy, which in 1911 culminated in the military campaign for the conquest of the Libyan regions, it evaluates the impact of fascism in Libya and the attempt to launch a broader pro-Arab policy. The third section analyzes the construction of the so-called 'special relationship' between Rome and Tripoli since the 50s when an economic interdependence between the Libyan oil producer and the Italian industrial power was pursued despite political differences. Finally, the volume also focuses on the dramatic implosion of Libya and the loss of its political unity following the fall of the Gaddafi regime, which, on the one hand, scaled back Italy's regional role, on the other, spread instability throughout the Euro-Mediterranean area. The volume uses a historiographical methodology focused on primary sources and updated scientific literature but also includes specialized analyses of the most current scenarios. This is the first systematic work on the Italian-Libyan relationship produced in English, accessible to area scholars, specialists, analysts, and students, who intend to deepen their understanding of one of the pivotal factors of the Euro-Mediterranean balance, which is currently missing.

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Book SynopsisBetween the 1850s and World War I, about one million North Caucasian Muslims sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire. This resettlement of Muslim refugees from Russia changed the Ottoman state. Circassians, Chechens, Dagestanis, and others established hundreds of refugee villages throughout the Ottoman Balkans, Anatolia, and the Levant. Most villages still exist today, including what is now the city of Amman. Muslim refugee resettlement reinvigorated regional economies, but also intensified competition over land and, at times, precipitated sectarian tensions, setting in motion fundamental shifts in the borderlands of the Russian and Ottoman empires. Empire of Refugees reframes late Ottoman history through mass displacement and reveals the origins of refugee resettlement in the modern Middle East. Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky offers a historiographical corrective: the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire created a refugee regime, predating refugee systems set up by the League of Nations and the United Nations. Grounded in archival research in over twenty public and private archives across ten countries, this book contests the boundaries typically assumed between forced and voluntary migration, and refugees and immigrants, rewriting the history of Muslim migration in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Trade Review"A brilliant tour de force. Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky offers a detailed, revisionist understanding of the beginnings of the modern refugee regime."—Dawn Chatty, University of Oxford"Magnificent and magisterial. Empire of Refugees not only reveals the emergence of a new template for refugee flows in the modern world, but it also captures the human experiences of the refugees themselves: their sorrows, hopes, failures, and successes. A prodigious achievement."—Michael A. Reynolds, Princeton University"Empire of Refugees is a meticulously researched and imaginatively conceived history of mass migration that represents a genuinely fresh contribution to both late Ottoman history and global refugee studies."—Laura Robson, Pennsylvania State UniversityTable of ContentsIllustrations and Tables Notes for the Reader Acknowledgments Introduction PART I: Refugee Migration 1. Muslim Migrations from the North Caucasus 2. Ottoman Refugee Regime PART II: Refugee Resettlement 3. Inequality and Sectarian Violence in the Balkans 4. Real Estate and Nomadic Frontier in the Levant 5. Building the Caucasus in Anatolia PART III: Diaspora and Return 6. Making the North Caucasian Diaspora 7. Return Migration to Russia Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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