Search results for ""C Hurst Co Publishers Ltd""

After the 1993 Oslo Accords, a handful of Palestinians were allowed to return to their hometowns in Israel. Fida Jiryis and her family were among them. This beautifully written memoir tells the story of their journey, which is also the story of Palestine, from the Nakba to the presenta seventy-five-year tale of conflict, exodus, occupation, return and search for belonging, seen through the eyes of one writer and her family. Jiryis reveals how her father, Sabri, a PLO leader and advisor to Yasser Arafat, chose exile in 1970 because of his work. Her own childhood in Beirut was shaped by regional tensions, the Lebanese Civil War and the 1982 Israeli invasion, which led to her mother's death. Thirteen years later, the family made an unexpected return to Fassouta, their village of origin in the Galilee. But Fida, twenty-two years old and full of love for her country, had no idea what she was getting into. Stranger in My Own Land chronicles a desperate, at times surreal, search for a homel

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Pakistan is facing a multitude of critical challenges, a ''Polycrisis'' arising in many areas at once--political, constitutional, economic, security-related, geo-political, demographic and ecological. These systemic predicaments are the cumulative consequence of decades of poor governance and squandered opportunities, whose convergence now creates a formidable existential threat. Maleeha Lodhi holds that Pakistan''s governmental leaders, both civilian and military, have failed to take a long view and to outline a vision for the country. They have spent much of their time in power operating in crisis management or power preservation modes, postponing meaningful reform and looking for expedient short-term ''solutions''. The consequences of those sins of omission and commission are now coming together. In this new volume, Lodhi has brought together eighteen chapters by experts in a variety of fields, including Murtaza Syed, Zahid Hussain, Riaz Mohammad Khan and Adil Najam, to analyse Pa

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Myanmar's generals didn't expect the nation to rise up against the coup they staged in February 2021. But after decades of stifling, direct military rule, the Burmese people had become used to another way of life during the relative openness of 201121. The army has been unable to suppress anti-coup protests as it did in 1962 and 1988; and, three years after sending tanks into Yangon, Naypyitaw and other cities, the army has yet to establish a functioning administration.For the first time since the 1970s, armed resistance is not confined to traditionally strife-torn frontier areas, where ethnic insurgents like the Karen National Union and Kachin Independence Army have been active for decadesit has spread to the majority-Burmese heartland, in the shape of the People's Defence Forces. But the anti-junta forces are insufficiently well-equipped to defeat the much more heavily armed Myanmar army, which itself is stretched too thin, on several fronts, to crush the resista

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In 2016 Crimea shapes the headlines much as it did some 160 years ago, when the Crimean War pitted Britain, France and Turkey against Russia. Yet few books have been published on the history of the peninsula. For many readers, Crimea seems as remote today as it was when colonised by the ancient Greeks. Neil Kent''s book recounts the history of the Crimea over three millennia. A crossroads between Europe and Asia, ships sailed to and from Crimean ports, forming a bridge that carried merchandise and transmitted ideas and innovations. Greeks, Scythians, Tartars, Russians, Armenians and Genoese are among those who settled the peninsula since antiquity, a demographic patchwork that reflects its geography. The religious beliefs of its inhabitants are almost as numerous: the Hebraicised beliefs of the Karaim Tartars, Islam, Judaisim, Russian and Greek Orthodoxy, as well as Roman Catholicism. This mosaic is also reflected in places of worship and the palaces which still adorn Crimea: imperial

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Montenegro was admitted to the UN as its 192nd member in June 2006, thus recovering the independence it had lost nearly 90 years earlier at the Versailles Peace Conference. This is the first full-length history of the country in English for a century, traces the history of the tiny Balkan state from its earliest roots in the medieval empire of Zeta through its consistently ambiguous and frequently problematic relationship with its larger neighbour Serbia, the emergence of a priest/warrior ruler in the shape of the Vladika and its emergence from Ottoman suzerainty state at the Congress of Berlin. More recently, the book focuses on its troubled 20th century history, its prominent role in the Balkan wars, its unique deletion from world maps as an independent state despite being on the winning side in the Great War, its ignominious role in the wars leading to the disintegration of Yugoslavia and its final remergence as a member of the international community on the anniversary of the Battl

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This book sheds light on a neglected aspect of India's Cold War diplomacy, starting with the role of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his Congress government in organising the first Asian-African Conference in Bandung in April 1955. Andrea Benvenuti shows how, in the early Cold War, Nehru seized the opportunity accorded by the conference to transcend growing international tensions and pursue an alternative vision: a neutralised Asian area of peace', underpinned by a code of conduct based on the five principles of peaceful coexistence.Relying on Indian, Western and Chinese archival sources, Nehru's Bandung focuses on the policy concerns and calculations, as well as the international factors, that drove a sceptical Nehru to support Indonesia's diplomatic push for such a gathering. It reveals how, in Nehru's estimation, Bandung also served a further important purposesecuring China's commitment to peaceful coexistence, without which stability in Asia would

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Britain has historically been seen as an upholder of international norms, at least in its relations with western powers. This has often been contrasted with the violence perpetrated in colonial contexts on other continents. What is often missed, however, is the extent to which the state with its capital in Londonfirst England, then Great Britaininflicted extreme violence on its European neighbours, even when still using the rhetoric of neighbourliness and friendship.This book comprises eleven case-studies of Anglo- British strategic violence, from the siege of Harfleur in 1415 to the fire-bombing of Hamburg in 1943. Chapters examine actions that were top-down and directed, and perpetrated for specific geopolitical reasonsmany of them at, or well beyond, the bounds of what was sanctioned by prevailing international norms at the time. The contributors look at how these actions were conceived, executed and perceived by the English/British public, by the international legal c

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After discovering that her grandmother had pro-German sympathies, Ann Shukman resolved to investigate her grandfather Walter Runciman's 1938 Mission to Prague. This government-sponsored British delegation sought to broker peace between the Czechoslovak republic and its Sudeten German minoritya dispute that Hitler was aggravating with virulent anti-Czech propaganda and threats of invasion.Drawing fresh evidence from personal diaries, private papers and Czech publications,44 Days in Pragueexposes the misunderstandings and official ignorance that provoked a calamitous series of betrayals. It reveals that, while Walter Runciman always supported Czechoslovakia's integrity, his wife Hildawhose role became crucialpublicly favoured the German cause.This is a moving portrayal of Walter's declining influence as tensions mounted, from the couple's efforts to court a divided old aristocracy at glittering social occasions, to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's fatal unde

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There seems to be no end to the growing number of victims of civil war, terrorism, guerrilla warfare and military repression on the Indian subcontinent, despite the absence of interstate wars over the past ten years. These conflicts often involve armed paramilitary militias or insurgents of one sort or other, and it is their ideology, sociology and strategies that the contributors to this book investigate. Whether based on ideological motives - such as the Maoists and Naxalites in Nepal and India - or invested with a fundamentalist religious mission - the Hindu nationalist Bajrang Dal in India, the Sunni SSP in Pakistan, or Islamist militias in Bangladesh-all these movements use violence to exercise social control, challenge the authority of the state and impose their own particular worldview.Although they seek also to undermine the state, depriving it of the monopoly on legitimate violence that it supposedly holds, governments are equally adept at exploiting them to make them serve their own ends. For the authorities, these movements can be useful tools for their pursuit of both moral and social order. However delegating power to such groups for short term political gains can be an extremely risky enterprise, as demonstrated by Indira Gadhi's patronage of the Sikh militant group that later assassinated her. "Armed Militas of South Asia" is the first comprehensive book of its sort and will be required reading for all those interested in the politics of the subcontinent and Myanmar.

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After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Caucasus was wracked by ethnic and separatist violence as the peoples of the region struggled for self-determination. Vicken Cheterian, who spent many years as a reporter and analyst covering the region's conflicts, asks why nationalism emerged as a dominant political current, and why, of the many nationalist movements that emerged, some led to violence while others did not. He explains also why minority rebellions were victorious against larger armies, in mountainous Karabakh, Abkhazia, and in the first war of Chechnya, and discusses the ongoing instability and armed resistance in the North Caucasus. He concludes his book by examining chapters the great power competition between Russia, the US, and the EU over the oil and gas resources of the Caspian region.

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"The State in Myanmar" is a totally revised and expanded and updated version of "The State in Burma" (1987), with additional chapters covering the last twenty years of Myanmar's political history. It attempts to explain the country's current politics in the light of the historical evolution of state-society relations in Myanmar since the pre-colonial kings, through the colonial era to the current, and third, post-colonial regime in this strategically important and little studied South East Asian nation. The book explains the dramatic and unpredicted collapse of the previous socialist regime and the attempts by new and old political forces to wrest control of the state from a revitalised and increasingly confident military government. Myanmar's state builders have applied varying ideas in their attempts to fashion a stable political order in an often fractious and far from unified nation and "The State in Myanmar" places those experiences in comparative perspective.

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Why is Iran continuously in the news? How has the Islamic Republic developed ideologically since the 1979 revolution? What are the best ways of comprehending the country at this critical juncture in its history? These are some of the questions at the heart of Arshin Adib-Moghaddam's book, which offers novel methodological and theoretical insights in explaining the foreign relations and domestic politics of post-revolutionary Iran. From the nuclear issue, to the perpetual stand-off with the United States, from the future of Iranian democracy to Iranian-Arab relations, from American neo-conservatism to Islamic utopian-romanticism, from Avicenna to Ayatollah Khomeini, the author guides the reader through the complexities that bedevil our understanding of contemporary Iran. In exposing the limitations of mainstream representations of the country and the wider Muslim world, 'Iran in World Politics' makes a powerful case for 'critical Iranian studies', for a new system of thought that pluralises both the way we see Iran, and the international politics enveloping the country.

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The Iranian regime is in the midst of a dangerous nuclear poker game with the West, playing for the highest possible stakes. Iran, ruled today by Ali Khamenei, the Guide of the Revolution, and the recently elected President Ahmadinejad, has no intention of yielding to international pressure exhorting it to suspend all uranium enrichment activity, a necessary but intermediate step in the process of building nuclear weapons. Iran is also seeking to join the WTO and it had been offered this incentive by the United States and the EU '3' (France, Britain and Germany) in exchange for a promise to cease enrichment. However, President Ahmadinejad's 12 April announcement that Iran has successfully enriched uranium takes the crisis to a higher plane. It also leaves many questions unanswered, above all, how the international community should respond to this unwelcome development. In this hard-hitting analysis of Tehran's intentions, Therese Delpech, one of the world's leading authorities on international nuclear security, outlines how Iran has successfully beguiled the international community for years, aided and abetted by China and Russia, both of which are eager to benefit commercially from Iran acquiring nuclear power. She dissects Iran's nuclear programme in minute detail, drawing on her inside knowledge. The first section of the book retraces the history of Iran's nuclear project from the 1970s -- one that was launched by the former Shah with help from several Western countries -- till today, when national pride, exemplified by Ahmadinejad's bellicose rhetoric, makes it highly unlikely that Tehran will bow to the diktats of the international community. She also examines the period when the programme was resumed, during Iran's war with Iraq (1985-90). The second section picks apart the strategy of the various actors in this global crisis: Iran, the EU '3', the United States, Russia, China and the IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency). In the third section, she sets out the various possible solutions in terms of their feasibility, practically and politically: dismantling by force, supervised third party reprocessing, referral to the Security Council, Iranian appeasement. In conclusion, Delpech unravels the tangled regional and international dimensions of the crisis, setting out the enormous impact it is having on the Persian Gulf, Turkey, Israel, America's presence in Iraq and the wider Middle East and the future of the much weakened Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NTP).

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Before Tito's Yugoslavia, which disintegrated violently in the 1990s, there was another Yugoslav state. This book is about the original, interwar Yugoslavia (1918-41), and is based on the author's research in Croatian, Serbian, British and American archives and on extensive study of published sources. Unlike other scholars, Dejan Djoki argues that the period can be best understood through an analysis of attempts to reach a Serb-Croat compromise. Historians have long recognised the Croats' rejection of state centralism, but Djoki shows that many Serbs had also accepted federalism by the mid-1930s. Djoki challenges the popular perception of the period as one of constant conflict between Serbs and non-Serbs and argues that the political mismanagement of the country paved the way for the radicalisation of the war years (1941-5) and the subsequent communist takeover. Although primarily a study of conflict management in a multinational state, the book provides an insight into the effects of politics on 'ordinary' people. "Elusive Compromise" places Yugoslavia in the context of a Europe-wide struggle between democracy and dictatorship, and contributes to an understanding of the dissolution of Yugoslavia and other multinational states.

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The Islamic Republic of Iran's ongoing nuclear programme has provoked a major and menacing crisis in its relations with the US and other Western powers. Ali Ansari, a Briton of Iranian origin, argues that the crisis is a symptom of broader, long-term fissures in US-Iranian relations, and in Confronting Iran he seeks to disentangle the myths that are at the bottom of this gulf in understanding which is compounded by the nature of the two states, their foreign policy establishments and the fraught history of their relations since the 1979 revolution. Ansari reviews the historical antecedents of the crisis, in particular US-Iranian relations since 9/11 and attempts by the EU to broker a settlement acceptable to all parties. He argues that the European position has been dictated as much by its relations with the US in the wake of the invasion of Iraq as by domestic politics in Iran, and he concludes by assessing the election of Mahmud Ahmadinejad as President and its likely impact on the view from Tehran and Washington. This account of a potential flashpoint in relations between the Muslim world and the West could not be more timely.

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While military intervention in Iraq was being planned, humanitarian organizations were offered US government funds to join the Coalition and operate under the umbrella of "Operation Iraqi Freedom". In Kosavo, Timor, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, NGOs had previously been asked to join in "just" wars. Indeed many aid agencies cooperated eagerly, subordinating their specific aims to the greater goal of "peace, democracy and human rights". Few Afghans or Sierra Leoneans regret the interventions. However, the inconvenient victims of these triumphs, those from the "wrong" side, are quickly forgotten. These are individuals whom humanitarian organizations have the duty to save, yet in doing so they must remain independent of the warring parties, and refrain from joining in the "struggle against evil" or any other political agenda. Then there are places where the pretence of providing assistance allows donor governments to disguise their backing of local political powers. Lastly there are those whose sacrifice is politically irrelevant in the wider scope of international relations. In circumstances such as these, what little international aid is available collides head-on with the mutal desire of the adversaries to wage "total" war that may lead to the extermination of entire populations. In this book, international experts and members of the MSF analyse the way these issues have crystallized over the five years spanning the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. The authors make the case for a renewed commitment to an old idea: a humanitarianism that defies the politics of sacrifice.

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Despite its centrality to the political life of India and Pakistan, the few reliable works of history that have appeared on Kashmir insist ahistorically on the existence of a unique Kashmir cultural identity. This text questions the notion of any transcendent cultural uniqueness and "Kashmiriyat".

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Divided into male and female sections, this dictionary provides an alphabetical listing of Muslim names in both English and Arabic. Each name has a description of its origin and meaning as well as indication of whether the name is derived from Arabic or Persian.

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This study seeks to penetrate the roots of the Taliban movement on Afghanistan, the factors which contributed to its sudden rise to prominence, and the implications of Taliban mobilization for the stability of Afghanistan and the region.

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Intensifying competition for scarce water resources, the result of rapid population growth and the drive for economic development, has added to the precarious politics of the Middle East and has the potential to generate tension and even armed conflict. Rivers of Contention provides an historical perspective on these complex issues and chronicles the present state of Middle Eastern water disputes. The impact of water disputes on the Middle East peace process is examined, as are the disputes over the waters of the Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates and the Orontes. Ground-water shared by Middle Eastern states (such as the aquifer beneath the Saudi-Jordanian border) and issues of quality (pollution) and quantity (volumes of water) are also discussed.

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What are values and how do we define them? Are there specific Islamic values? Do universal core values exist? How do we pass on appropriate values to future generations? This issue of Critical Muslim tackles these questions, with contributions from Rowan Williams, Kabir Helminski, Jeremy Henzell-Thomas, Charles Butterworth, Boyd Tonkin, Alex Moore, Mohammed Hashas and others.

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This book investigates how ecology and politics meet in the Middle East and how those interactions connect to the global political economy. Through region-wide analyses and case studies from the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf of Aden, the Levant and North Africa, the volume highlights the intimate connections of environmental activism, energy infrastructure and illicit commodity trading with the political economies of Central Asia, the Horn of Africa and the Indian subcontinent. The book's nine chapters analyse how the exploitation and representation of the environment have shaped the history of the region--and determined its place in global politics. It argues that how the ecological is understood, instrumentalised and intervened upon is the product of political struggle: deconstructing ideas and practices of environmental change means unravelling claims of authority and legitimacy. This is particularly important in a region frequently seen through the prism of environmental determinism, where ruling elites have imposed authoritarian control as the corollary of 'environmental crisis'. This unique and urgent collection will question much of what we think we know about this pressing issue.

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The Mayor of Mogadishu tells the story of one family's epic journey through Somalia's turmoil, from the optimism of independence to its spectacular unravelling.Mohamud 'Tarzan' Nur was born a nomad, and became an orphan, then a street brawler in the cosmopolitan port city of Mogadishu - a place famous for its cafes and open-air cinemas. When Somalia collapsed into civil war, Tarzan and his young family joined the exodus from Mogadishu, eventually spending twenty years in North London. But in 2010 Tarzan returned to the unrecognisable ruins of a city largely controlled by the Islamist militants of Al-Shabaab. For some, the new Mayor was a galvanising symbol of defiance. But others branded him a thug, mired in the corruption and clan rivalries that continue to threaten Somalia's revival.The Mayor of Mogadishu is an uplifting story of survival, and a compelling examination of what it means to lose a country and then to reclaim it.

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Islamist terrorism is on the rise in Europe, and we are witnessing new methods of attack on an all-too-regular basis. While the death of Osama bin Laden and the advent of the `Arab Spring’ fed expectations that international jihadism was a spent force, Europe has faced an increase in terrorist plots over the past few years. In addition, there are growing security concerns over the fallout of the Syrian conflict, and its sizeable contingents of battle-hardened European fighters. This book provides a comprehensive account of the rise of jihadist militancy in Europe and offers a detailed background for understanding the current and future threat. Based on a wide range of new primary sources, it traces the phenomenon back to the late 1980s, and the formation of jihadist support networks in Europe in the early 1990s. Combining analytical rigour with empirical richness, the book offers a comprehensive account of patterns of terrorist cell formation and plots between 1995 and 2017. In contrast to existing research which has emphasised social explanations, failed immigration and homegrown radicalism, this book highlights the entrepreneurial role of former Arab-Afghan veterans and their associated organisations and ideological agendas.

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While it is central to today's politics, few people fully understand the National Debt and its role in shaping the course of British history. Without it, Britain would not have gained--and lost--two empires, nor won its wars against France and Germany. But Britain has also been moulded by attempts to break free of the Debt, from postwar Keynesian economics to today's austerity. Martin Slater writes a vivid tale coloured with some of the most dramatic incidents and personalities of Britain's past--from clashes between King and Parliament, American independence and war in Europe, to the abolition of slavery, the development of the Union and the role of leading figures such as Pitt, Gladstone, Adam Smith and Keynes. From medieval times to the 2008 financial crash and beyond, The National Debt explores the changing fortunes of the Debt, and so of Great Britain.

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This issue of Critical Muslim focuses on Bangladesh, with articles exploring its history, culture, politics and future trajectories. There will be essays on female victims of the War of Independence, progressive Bangladeshi Muslim intellectuals, women in politics, the rise of extremist groups, the impact of climate change on the country, stories of those who struggle on the margins, the role of artists in times of panic, and the joys of singing and dancing in Bengali. Plus the best of contemporary Bangladeshi short fiction and poetry.

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Why has Libya fallen apart since 2011? The world has largely given up trying to understand how the revolution that toppled Muammar Gaddafi has left the country a failed state and a major security headache for Europe. Gaddafi's police state has been replaced by yet another dictatorship, amidst a complex conflict of myriad armed groups, Islamists, tribes, towns and secularists. What happened? One of few foreign journalists to have lived in post-revolution Tripoli, Ulf Laessing has unique insight into the violent nature of post-Gaddafi politics. Confronting threats from media-hostile militias and jihadi kidnappings, in a world where diplomats retreat to their compounds and guns are drawn at government press conferences, Laessing has kept his ear to the ground and won the trust of many key players. Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi is an original blend of personal anecdote and nuanced Libyan history. It offers a much-needed diagnosis of why war has erupted over a desert nation of just 6 million, and of how the country blessed with Africa's greatest energy reserves has been reduced to state collapse.

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The eruption of the anti-Assad revolution in Syria has had many unintended consequences, among which is the opportunity it offered Sunni jihadists to establish a foothold in the heart of the Middle East. That Syria's ongoing civil war is so brutal and protracted has only compounded the situation, as have developments in Iraq and Lebanon. Ranging across the battlefields and international borders have been dozens of jihadi Islamist fighting groups, of which some coalesced into significant factions such as Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic State. This book assesses and explains the emergence since 2011 of Sunni jihadist organisations in Syria's fledgling insurgency, charts their evolution and situates them within the global Islamist project. Unprecedented numbers of foreign fighters have joined such groups, who will almost certainly continue to host them. Thus, external factors in their emergence are scrutinised, including the strategic and tactical lessons learned from other jihadist conflict zones and the complex interplay between Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and how it has influenced the jihadist sphere in Syria. Tensions between and conflict within such groups also feature in this indispensable volume.

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Yassin 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.

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The contradictory trends of the 'post-Arab Spring' landscape form both the backdrop to, and the focus of, this volume on the changing security dynamics of the Persian Gulf, defined as the six GCC states plus Iraq and Iran. The political and economic upheaval triggered by the uprisings of 2011, and the rapid emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in 2014, have underscored the vulnerability of regional states to an intersection of domestic pressures and external shocks. The initial phase of the uprisings has given way to a series of messy and uncertain transitions that have left societies deeply fractured and ignited violence both within and across states. The bulk of the protests, with the notable exception of Bahrain, occurred outside the Gulf region, but Persian Gulf states were at the forefront of the political, economic, and security response across the Middle East.This volume provides a timely and comparative study of how security in the Persian Gulf has evolved and adapted to the growing uncertainty of the post-2011 regional landscape.

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Hassan Mahamdallie gets spiritual in a commune; Marco Lauri visits Ibn Tufayl's twelfth-century island utopia Hayy Ibn Yaqdan; Malise Ruthven interrogates modernity and Islamic utopias, Nazry Bahrawi is sceptical about secular utopias; and Sadek Hamid traces the rise and fall of the utopian vision of Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Also in this issue: orientalist utopias in Andalusia, feminist futures, and was the Prophet's Medina a utopia? Not forgetting poems, short stories, the Last Word and the List.About Critical Muslim: A quarterly publication of ideas and issues showcasing groundbreaking thinking on Islam and what it means to be a Muslim in a rapidly changing, interconnected world. Each edition centers on a discrete theme, and contributions include reportage, academic analysis, cultural commentary, photography, poetry, and book reviews.

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On 16 June 2011, three days before his sixtieth birthday, Ayman al-Zawahiri was declared the new leader of Al- Qaeda, replacing the fallen Osama bin Laden. The veteran Egyptian jihadist had little of his predecessor's charisma and enjoyed much less popularity, respect and celebrity. Yet, as scores of jihadi commanders from different organisations have succumbed to their enemies' missiles, bombs and bullets, Zawahiri has soldiered on. His tenure as Al-Qaeda's leader has been marked by some of its darkest and most challenging moments, which have threatened the viability and future of Al-Qaeda's central leadership. The gravest such development has been the emergence of Islamic State as a separate and rival jihadist entity. The best way to gauge Zawahiri's response to these threats is by studying the official statements and public communiques that he has issued since taking the reins. This book provides the reader with professional translations of Zawahiri's key statements during his first five years as leader of Al-Qaeda.These official communications are introduced and contextualised to provide the reader with a comprehensive sourcebook, outlining the Al-Qaeda leadership's stance on the challenges to its existence since the death of bin Laden.

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This book demonstrates the vitality of Arab political thought and its major controversies. It shows that the key players involved, far from being constrained by a theological-political straitjacket, have often demonstrated strong critical thinking when tackling religion and philosophy, anthropology and politics. Setting these thinkers and their works within two centuries of upheaval in the Arab world, Georges Corm demonstrates how Arab critical thought has been marginalised by powerful external forces: the military, the academy and the media. In its place has risen a hegemonic Islamist thought, used cannily by certain Arab regimes and their Western protectors. Closely tracing the successive transformations of modernist Arab nationalism, Arab Political Thought offers a blueprint for understanding the libertarian Arab Spring, as well as the counter-revolutions and external interventions that have followed. This invaluable guide comprehensively distills the complexity of Arab intellectualism. Any return to peace in the region will rely heavily upon recognition of the powerful dynamics underlying this school of thought, which is both critical and profane, and a far cry from the outdated politico-religious image it has acquired.

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This collection seeks to advance our understanding of intra-Islamic identity conflict during a period of upheaval in the Middle East. Instead of treating distinctions between and within Sunni and Shia Islam as primordial and immutable, it examines how political economy, geopolitics, domestic governance, social media, non- and sub-state groups, and clerical elites have affected the transformation and diffusion of sectarian identities. Particular attention is paid to how conflicts over distribution of political and economic power have taken on a sectarian quality, and how a variety of actors have instrumentalised sectarianism. The volume, covering Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, Iran, and Egypt, includes contributors from a broad array of disciplines including political science, history, sociology, and Islamic studies. Beyond Sunni and Shia draws on extensive fieldwork and primary sources to offer insights that are empirically rich and theoretically grounded, but also accessible for policy audiences and the informed public.

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Western interventions today have much in common with the countless violent conflicts that have occurred on Europe's periphery since the conquest of the Americas in the sixteenth century. Like their predecessors, modern imperial wars are shaped especially by spatial features and by pronounced asymmetries of military organisation, resources, modes of warfare and cultures of violence between the respective parties. Today's imperial wars are essentially civil wars, in which Western powers are only one player among many. As ever, the Western military machine is proving incapable of resolving political strife through force, or of engaging opponents with no reason to offer conventional combat, who instead rely on guerrilla warfare and terrorism. And, as they always have, local populations pay the price for these shortcomings. Colonial Violence aims to offer, for the first time, a coherent explanation of the logic of violent hostilities within the context of European expansion. Walter's analysis reveals parallels between different empires and continuities spanning historical epochs. He concludes that recent Western military interventions, from Afghanistan to Mali, are not new wars, but stand in the 500-year-old tradition of transcultural violent conflict, under the specific conditions of colonialism.

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The role of women in the Italian mafias has long been overlooked. Reduced to victim status and relegated to domestic life in a male-dominated society, women serve as the mafia's respectable facade: virtuous and docile. It is hard to picture these immaculate figures married to and raising brutal killers. But, as Milka Kahn and Anne Veron reveal in this absorbing book, women have always been at the heart of Italy's criminal organisations, as the guarantors of mafia culture. While the men are behind bars or on the run, it is left to their wives and mothers to uphold and pass on the 'family values'. Once widowed, they push their sons to vendetta; they are increasingly becoming mafia chiefs in their own right. Yet many also decide to risk their lives and break with 'the Family', collaborating with the authorities and renouncing mafia society in search of a normal life. So who are these women? Are they pure Madonnas, or dangerous Godmothers? Women of Honour paints a complex and fascinating portrait through extremely rare interviews with the women themselves, who have overcome a culture of silence to share their extraordinary lives.

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James Manor is acknowledged as one of the world's leading experts on Indian politics, especially how it is affected by caste, political economy -- particularly poverty and its alleviation -- regionalism and modes of political leadership. This book distils his six decades of research, scholarship and writing on these topics, presenting the reader with a definitive collection of chapters covering the full spectrum of Manor's expertise. The first section is a commentary on the emergence of a consolidated democracy in India, and discusses political awakening and political decay, which, together with political regeneration, form the three key processes at work in Indian politics over the past forty years. If one aspect of the management of democratic affairs is linked to the Indian voters and their shifting political choices, the other is where political leaders step in; and Manor is equally interested in both. He devotes three sections to the nature of political parties, the trends of regional politics, and how, at all these levels, political actors manage the challenges of governance.He addresses the regional dynamics of politics through the lens of political leadership in the fourth section. And in the last section, he comments on the more recent and turbulent phase of Indian politics, as Hindu nationalists took power in the regions and at the centre.

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The Indus Waters Treaty is considered a key example of India-Pakistan cooperation, but less has been said about its critical influence on state-making in both countries. Rivers Divided reveals the importance of the Indus Basin river system, and thus control over it, for Indian and Pakistani claims to sovereignty after South Asia's Partition in 1947. Securing water flows was a key aim for both governments. In 1960 the Indus Waters Treaty ostensibly settled the dispute, but in fact failed to address critical sources of tension. Examples include the role of water in the Kashmir conflict and the riverine geography of Punjab's militarized border zone. Despite the recent resurgence of disputes over water-sharing in South Asia, the historical causes and consequences of the region's flagship natural resources treaty remain little understood. Based on new research in South Asia, the United States and United Kingdom, this book places the Indus dispute, for the first time, in the context of decolonisation and Cold War-era development politics. It examines the discord at local, national and international levels, arguing that we can only explain its importance and longevity in light of India and Pakistan's state-building initiatives after independence.

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The Great Game in West Asia examines the strategic competition between Iran and Turkey for power and influence in the South Caucasus. These neighbouring Middle East powers have vied for supremacy and influence throughout the region and especially in their immediate vicinity, while both contending with ethnic heterogeneity within their own territories and across their borders. Turkey has long conceived of itself as not just a bridge between Asia and Europe but in more substantive terms as a central player in regional and global affairs. If somewhat more modest in its public statements, Iran's parallel ambitions for strategic centrality and influence have only been masked by its own inarticulate foreign policy agendas and the repeated missteps of its revolutionary leaders. But both have sought to deepen their regional influence and power, and in the South Caucasus each has achieved a modicum of success. In fact, as the contributions to this volume demonstrate, as much of the world's attention has been diverted to conflicts and flashpoints near and far, a new great game has been unravelling between Iran and Turkey in the South Caucasus.

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Islamic State has replaced Al Qaeda as the great global threat of the twenty-first century, the bogeyman we have all come to fear. But Daesh started as a local movement, rooted in the resentment of the Sunni Arabs of Iraq and Syria. It is they who have lost most in the geo-strategic shift in the balance of power in the region over the last thirty years, as Iranian-backed Shias have mobilised politically and advanced on the social and economic fronts. How has Islamic State been able to muster support far beyond its initial constituency in the Arab world and to attract tens of thousands of foreign volunteers, including converts to Islam, and seemingly countless supporters online? In this compelling intervention into the debate about Islamic State's origins and future prospects, the renowned French sociologist of religion, Olivier Roy, argues that the group mobilised a highly sophisticated narrative, reviving the myth of the Caliphate and recasting it into a modern story of heroism, death and nihilism, using a very contemporary aesthetic of violence, well entrenched amid a youth culture that has turned global and violent.

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After formally announcing his conversion to Islam in the late 1880s, the Liverpool lawyer William Henry Abdullah Quilliam publicly propagated his new faith and established the first community of Muslim converts in Victorian Britain. Despite decades of relative obscurity following his death, with the resurgence of interest in Muslim heritage in the West since 9/11 Quilliam has achieved iconic status in Britain and beyond as a pivotal figure in the history of Western Islam and Muslim-Christian relations. In this timely book, leading experts of the religion, history and politics of Islam offer new perspectives and shed fresh light on Quilliam's life and work. Through a series of original essays, the authors critically examine Quilliam's influences, philosophy and outlook, the significance of his work for Islam, his position in the Muslim world and his legacy. Collectively, the authors ask pertinent questions about how conversion to Islam was viewed and received historically, and how a zealous convert like Quilliam negotiated his religious and national identities and sought to indigenise Islam in a non- Muslim country. Jamie Gilham is Honorary Research Associate in the Department of History at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of Loyal Enemies: British Converts to Islam, 1850-1950.

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This book offers a much-needed corrective to dominant approaches to understanding political causality during episodes of intense social mobilisation, specifically with a North African context. Drawing on analyses of routine governance and of 'revolutionary' mobilisation in four countries of the Maghreb -- Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya -- before, during and after the 2011 uprisings, Volpi explains the different trajectories of these uprisings by showing how specific acts of protest created new arenas of contention that provided actors with new rationales, practices and, ultimately, identities. The book illustrates how the dynamics of revolutionary episodes are characterised by the social and political de-institutionalisation of routine mechanisms of (authoritarian) governance. It also details how post-uprising re-institutionalisation and/or conflict are shaped by reconstructed understandings of the uprisings by actors, who are themselves partially the products of these episodes of phenomena.

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Amid the turbulence of the 2011 Arab uprisings, the revolutionary uprising that played out in Cairo's Tahrir Square created high expectations before dashing the hopes of its participants. The upheaval led to a sequence of events in Egypt that scarcely anyone could have predicted, and precious few have understood: five years on, the status of Egypt's unfinished revolution remains shrouded in confusion. Power shifted hands rapidly, first from protesters to the army leadership, then to the politicians of the Muslim Brotherhood, and then back to the army. The politics of the street has given way to the politics of Islamist-military detentes and the undoing of the democratic experiment. Meanwhile, a burgeoning Islamist insurgency occupies the army in Sinai and compounds the nation's sense of uncertainty. A Revolution Undone blends analysis and narrative, charting Egypt's journey from Tahrir to Sisi from the perspective of an author and analyst who lived it all. H.A. Hellyer brings his first-hand experience to bear in his assessment of Egypt's experiment with protest and democracy.And by scrutinising Egyptian society and public opinion, Islamism and Islam, the military and government, as well as the West's reaction to events, Hellyer provides a much-needed appraisal of Egypt's future prospects.

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With the arrival in Europe of over a million refugees and asylum seekers in 2015, a sense of panic began to spread within the continent and beyond. What is a Refugee? puts these developments into historical context, injecting much-needed objectivity and nuance into contemporary debates over what is to be done. Refugees have been with us for a long time -- although only after the Great War did refugee movements commence on a large scale -- and are ultimately symptoms of the failure of the system of states to protect all who live within it. Providing a terse user's guide to the complex legal status of refugees, Maley argues that states are now reaping the consequences of years of attempts to block access to asylum through safe and 'legal' means. He shows why many mooted 'solutions' to the 'problem' of refugees -- from military intervention to the warehousing of refugees in camps -- are counterproductive, creating environments ripe for the growth of extremism among people who have been denied all hope. In a globalised world, he concludes, wealthy states have the resources to protect refugees.And, as his historical account shows, courageous individuals have treated refugees in the past with striking humanity. States today could do worse than emulate them.

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This book examines the political landscape that took shape in Myanmar after the 2010 elections and the subsequent transition from direct military rule to a quasi-civilian 'hybrid' regime. Striking political, social, and economic transformations have indeed taken place in the long-isolated country since the military junta was disbanded in March 2011. To better construe -- and question -- what has routinely been labelled a 'Burmese Spring', Egreteau examines the reasons behind the ongoing political transition, as well as the role of the Burmese armed forces in that process, drawing on in-depth interviews with Burmese political actors, party leaders, parliamentarians and retired army officers. The study also takes its cue from comparative scholarship on civil-military relations and post-authoritarian politics, to look at the 'praetorian' logic explaining the transitional moment. Myanmar's road to democratic change is, however, still paved with daunting obstacles.As the book suggests, the continuing military intervention in domestic politics, the resilience of bureaucratic, economic and political clientelism at all levels of society, the iconification of Aung San Suu Kyi, the shadowy influence of regional and global powers, as well as enduring concerns about interethnic and interreligious relations, all are strong reminders of the series of elemental conundrums with which Myanmar will have to deal in order to achieve democratisation, sustainable development and peace.

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The global icon is an omnipresent but poorly understood element of mass culture. This book asks why audiences around the world have embraced particular iconic figures, how perceptions of these figures have changed, and what this tells us about transnational relations since the Cold War era. Prestholdt addresses these questions by examining one type of icon: the anti-establishment figure. As symbols that represent sentiments, ideals, or something else recognizable to a wide audience, icons of dissent have been integrated into diverse political and consumer cultures, and global audiences have reinterpreted them over time. To illustrate these points the book examines four of the most evocative and controversial figures of the past fifty years: Che Guevara, Bob Marley, Tupac Shakur, and Osama bin Laden. Each has embodied a convergence of dissent, cultural politics, and consumerism, yet popular perceptions of each reveal the dissonance between shared, global references and locally contingent interpretations. By examining four very different figures, 'Icons of Dissent' offers new insights into global symbolic idioms, the mutability of common references, and the commodification of political sentiment in the contemporary world.

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Much like the large commercial companies, most humanitarian aid organisations now have departments specifically dedicated to protecting the security of their personnel and assets. The management of humanitarian security has gradually become the business of professionals who develop data collection systems, standardized procedures, norms, and training meant to prevent and manage risks. A large majority of aid agencies and security experts see these developments as inevitable -- all the more so because of quantitative studies and media reports concluding that the dangers to which aid workers are today exposed are completely unprecedented. Yet, this trend towards professionalisation is also raising questions within aid organisations, MSF included. Can insecurity be measured by scientific means and managed through norms and protocols? How does the professionalisation of security affect the balance of power between field and headquarters, volunteers and the institution that employs them? What is its impact on the implementation of humanitarian organizations' social mission? Are there alternatives to the prevailing security model(s) derived from the corporate world?Building on MSF's experience and observations of the aid world by academics and practitioners, the authors of this book look at the drivers of the professionalization of humanitarian security and its impact on humanitarian practices, with a specific focus on Syria, CAR and kidnapping in the Caucasus.

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