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Cambridge Middle East Studies has been established to publish books on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Middle East and North Africa. The aim of the series is to provide new and original interpretations of aspects of Middle Eastern societies and their histories. To achieve disciplinary diversity, books are solicited from authors writing in a wide range of fields, including history, sociology, anthropology, political science and political economy. The emphasis is on producing books that offer an original approach along theoretical and empirical lines.

  • General Editors: Charles Tripp, University of London
  • Editorial Boards: Julia A. Clancy-Smith, F. Gregory Gause, Yezid Sayigh, Avi Shlaim, Judith E. Tucker

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65 results in Cambridge Middle East Studies

Page 3 of 4

A War of Words
  • Language and Conflict in the Middle East
  • Yasir Suleiman
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    10 June 2004
  • Yasir Suleiman's 2004 book considers national identity in relation to language, the way in which language can be manipulated to signal political, cultural or even historical difference. As a language with a long-recorded heritage and one spoken by the majority of those in the Middle East in a variety of dialects, Arabic is a particularly appropriate vehicle for such an investigation. It is also a penetrating device for exploring the conflicts of the Middle East, the diversity of its peoples and the diversity of their viewpoints. Suleiman's book offers a wealth of empirical material, and intriguing, often poignant illustrations of antagonisms articulated through pun or double entendre.

Superstition as Ideology in Iranian Politics
  • From Majlesi to Ahmadinejad
  • Ali Rahnema
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    06 June 2011
  • A superstitious reading of the world based on religion may be harmless at a private level, yet employed as a political tool it can have more sinister implications. As this fascinating book by Ali Rahnema, a distinguished Iranian intellectual, relates, superstition and mystical beliefs have endured and influenced ideology and political strategy in Iran from the founding of the Safavid dynasty in the sixteenth century to the present day. As Rahnema demonstrates through a close reading of the Persian sources and with examples from contemporary Iranian politics, it is this supposed connectedness to the hidden world that has allowed leaders such as Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and Mahmud Ahmadinejad to present themselves and their entourage as representatives of the divine, and their rivals as the embodiment of evil.

Being Israeli
  • The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship
  • Gershon Shafir, Yoav Peled
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    14 February 2002
  • A timely study by two well-known scholars offers a theoretically informed account of the political sociology of Israel. The analysis is set within its historical context as the authors trace Israel's development from Zionist settlement in the 1880s, through the establishment of the state in 1948, to the present day. Against this background the authors speculate on the relationship between identity and citizenship in Israeli society, and consider the differential rights, duties and privileges that are accorded different social strata. In this way they demonstrate that, despite ongoing tensions, the pressure of globalization and economic liberalization has gradually transformed Israel from a frontier society to one more oriented towards peace and private profit. This unexpected conclusion offers some encouragement for the future of this troubled region. However, Israel's position towards the peace process is still subject to a tug-of-war between two conceptions of citizenship: liberal citizenship on the one hand, and a combination of the remnants of republican citizenship associated with the colonial settlement with an ever more religiously defined ethno-nationalist citizenship, on the other.

The War for Palestine
  • Rewriting the History of 1948
  • 2nd edition
  • Edited by Eugene L. Rogan, Avi Shlaim
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    19 November 2007
  • The 1948 war led to the creation of the state of Israel, the fragmentation of Palestine, and to a conflict which has raged across the intervening sixty years. The historical debate likewise continues and these debates are encapsulated in the second edition of The War for Palestine, updated to include chapters on Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. In a preface to this edition, the editors survey the state of scholarship in this contested field. The impact of these debates goes well beyond academia. There is an important link between the state of Arab-Israeli relations and popular attitudes towards the past. A more complex and fair-minded understanding of that past is essential for preserving at least the prospect of reconciliation between Arabs and Israel in the future. The rewriting of the history of 1948 thus remains a practical as well as an academic imperative.

Frontier Nomads of Iran
  • A Political and Social History of the Shahsevan
  • Richard Tapper
  • Published online:
    05 March 2012
    Print publication:
    28 August 1997
  • Richard Tapper's 1997 book, which is based on three decades of ethnographic fieldwork and extensive documentary research, traces the political and social history of the Shahsevan, one of the major nomadic peoples of Iran. The story is a dramatic one, recounting the mythical origins of the tribes, their unification as a confederacy, and their decline under the Pahlavi Shahs. The book is intended as a contribution to three different debates. The first concerns the riddle of Shahsevan origins, while another considers how far changes in tribal social and political formations are a function of relations with states. The third discusses how different constructions of the identity of a particular people determine their view of the past. In this way, the book promises not only to make a major contribution to the history and anthropology of the Middle East and Central Asia, but also to theoretical debates in both disciplines.

Women, Property and Islam
  • Palestinian Experiences, 1920–1990
  • Annelies Moors
  • Published online:
    05 July 2011
    Print publication:
    23 February 1996
  • According to Islamic law, women are entitled to inherit property, to receive a dower at marriage, and are in full control of their income. Through an anthropological study of Palestinian women on the West Bank, Annelies Moors demonstrates that this is not always the case in practice. In fact, their options vary greatly depending on whether they gain access to property through inheritance, through the dower or through paid labour. The narratives of women from different stratas of society indicate under what circumstances they claim property rights, and when they are prevented from doing so in order to gain other advantages. While essentially an ethnographic study, the author's use of court records demonstrates how historical changes have affected women's claims to property, focusing on the relation between local traditions, international politics and transnational labour migration.

Iran's Intellectual Revolution
  • Mehran Kamrava
  • Published online:
    06 July 2010
    Print publication:
    25 September 2008
  • Since its revolution in 1979, Iran has been viewed as the bastion of radical Islam and a sponsor of terrorism. The focus on its volatile internal politics and its foreign relations has, according to Kamrava, distracted attention from more subtle transformations which have been taking place there in the intervening years. With the death of Ayatollah Khomeini a more relaxed political environment opened up in Iran, which encouraged intellectual and political debate between learned elites and religious reformers. What emerged from these interactions were three competing ideologies which Kamrava categorises as conservative, reformist and secular. As the book aptly demonstrates, these developments, which amount to an intellectual revolution, will have profound and far-reaching consequences for the future of the Islamic republic, its people and very probably for countries beyond its borders. This thought-provoking account of the Iranian intellectual and cultural scene will confound stereotypical views of Iran and its mullahs.

War and Memory in Lebanon
  • Sune Haugbolle
  • Published online:
    05 May 2010
    Print publication:
    15 March 2010
  • From 1975 to 1990, Lebanon endured one of the most protracted and bloody civil wars of the twentieth century. Sune Haugbolle's book chronicles the battle over ideas that emerged from the wreckage of that war. While the Lebanese state encouraged forgetfulness and political parties created sectarian interpretations of the war through cults of dead leaders, intellectuals and activists - inspired by the example of truth and reconciliation movements in different parts of the world - advanced the idea that confronting and remembering the war was necessary for political and cultural renewal. Through an analysis of different cultural productions - media, art, literature, film, posters, and architecture - the author shows how the recollection and reconstruction of political and sectarian violence that took place during the war have helped in Lebanon's healing process. He also shows how a willingness to confront the past influenced the popular uprising in Lebanon after the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

Oil Wealth and the Poverty of Politics
  • Algeria Compared
  • Miriam R. Lowi
  • Published online:
    29 March 2010
    Print publication:
    12 November 2009
  • How can we make sense of Algeria's post-colonial experience - the tragedy of unfulfilled expectations, the descent into violence, the resurgence of the state? Oil Wealth and the Poverty of Politics explains why Algeria's domestic political economy unravelled from the mid-1980s, and how the regime eventually managed to regain power and hegemony. Miriam Lowi argues the importance of leadership decisions for political outcomes, and extends the argument to explain the variation in stability in oil-exporting states following economic shocks. Comparing Algeria with Iran, Iraq, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, she asks why some states break down and undergo regime change, while others remain stable, or manage to re-stabilise after a period of instability. In contrast with exclusively structuralist accounts of the rentier state, this book demonstrates, in a fascinating and accessible study, that political stability is a function of the way in which structure and agency combine.

Political Ideology in the Arab World
  • Accommodation and Transformation
  • Michaelle L. Browers
  • Published online:
    22 January 2010
    Print publication:
    14 May 2009
  • Arab nationalism and Islamism have been the two most potent ideological forces in the Arab region across the twentieth century. Over the last two decades, however, an accommodation of sorts has been developing between liberals, socialists and Islamists, to protest unpopular foreign and domestic policies, such as those aimed at cooperation with Israel or the war in Iraq. By examining the writings of Arab nationalist, socialist and Islamist intellectuals, and through numerous interviews with political participants from different persuasions, Michaelle Browers traces these developments from the 'Arab age of ideology', as it has been called, through an 'age of ideological transformation', demonstrating clearly how the recent flow of ideas from one group to another have their roots in the past. Political Ideology in the Arab World assesses the impact of ideological changes on Egypt's Kifaya! [Enough!] movement and Yemen's joint meeting parties.

Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf
  • Manama since 1800
  • Nelida Fuccaro
  • Published online:
    20 January 2010
    Print publication:
    03 September 2009
  • In this path-breaking and multi-layered account of one of the least explored societies in the Middle East, Nelida Fuccaro examines the political and social life of the Gulf city and its coastline, as exemplified by Manama in Bahrain. Written as an ethnography of space, politics and community, it addresses the changing relationship between urban development, politics and society before and after the discovery of oil. By using a variety of local sources and oral histories, Fuccaro questions the role played by the British Empire and oil in state-making. Instead, she draws attention to urban residents, elites and institutions as active participants in state and nation building. She also examines how the city has continued to provide a source of political, social and sectarian identity since the early nineteenth century, challenging the view that the advent of oil and modernity represented a radical break in the urban past of the region.

The Kurdish Nationalist Movement
  • Opportunity, Mobilization and Identity
  • David Romano
  • Published online:
    14 January 2010
    Print publication:
    02 March 2006
  • David Romano's 2006 book focuses on the Kurdish case to try and make sense of ethnic nationalist resurgence generally. In a world rent by a growing number of such conflicts, the questions posed about why, how and when such challenges to the state are mounted are becoming increasingly urgent. Throughout the author analyses these questions through the lens of social movement theory, considering in particular politico-social structures, resource mobilization strategies and cultural identity. His conclusions offer some thought-provoking insights into Kurdish nationalism, as well as into the strengths and weaknesses of various social movement theories. While the book offers a rigorous conceptual approach, the empirical material - the result of the author's personal experiences - makes it a compelling read. It will find a readership amongst students of the Middle East, and also amongst those interested in ethnic relations, minority rights, terrorism, state repression, social movement theories and many other related issues.

The Divided Economy of Mandatory Palestine
  • Jacob Metzer
  • Published online:
    18 December 2009
    Print publication:
    13 June 1998
  • Adopting a systematic yet non-technical approach. Jacob Metzer's book is the first to analyse the divided economy of Mandatory Palestine from the viewpoints of modern economic history and development economics. While the existing literature has tended to focus on the Jewish economy, this book explores the socio-economic attributes of both the Arab and Jewish communities within the complex political economy of the period. A concluding chapter reviews the uneasy record of Arab-Jewish economic coexistence in the area of Mandatory Palestine, composed of present-day Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The book makes a significant contribution to the economic history of the modern Middle East and to an understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It will appeal to economic historians, development economists and to scholars in the related fields of social and political history.

Civil Society in Yemen
  • The Political Economy of Activism in Modern Arabia
  • Sheila Carapico
  • Published online:
    02 December 2009
    Print publication:
    28 March 1998
  • Sheila Carapico's book on civic participation in modern Yemen makes an authoritative contribution to the study of political culture in the Arabian peninsula. Relying on in-depth documentary and field research, the author traces the political dynamics of recent years, culminating in Yemeni unification, focuses on efforts to develop the political, economic and social structures of a modern, democratic government. Her wide-ranging analysis of the legal, institutional and financial aspects of state building and of popular dimensions of political liberalization, protest and participation challenge the stereotypical view of conservative Arab Muslim society. The political economy approach to the study which reveals a surprising degree of 'activism in Arabia' also helps to interpret the nature of civil society from a broad theoretical perspective. This is an important book which promises to become the definitive work on twentieth-century Yemen.

Redefining the Egyptian Nation, 1930–1945
  • Israel Gershoni, James P. Jankowski
  • Published online:
    24 November 2009
    Print publication:
    20 April 1995
  • The authors examine the emergence of nationalism among the Egyptian middle class during the 1930s and 1940s, and its growing awareness of an Arab and Muslim identity. Previously Egypt did not define itself in these terms, but adopted a territorial and isolationist outlook. It is the revolutionary transformation in Egyptian self-understanding which took place during this period that provides the focus of this study. The authors demonstrate how the growth of an urban middle class, combined with economic and political failures in the 1930s, eroded the foundations of the earlier order. Alongside domestic events, the momentum of Arabism abroad and the impact of events in Palestine, necessitated Egyptian regional involvement. Egypt's present position as a major player in Arab, Muslim and Third World affairs has its roots in the fundamental transition of Egyptian national identity at this time.

The Rule of Law in the Arab World
  • Courts in Egypt and the Gulf
  • Nathan J. Brown
  • Published online:
    23 October 2009
    Print publication:
    26 June 1997
  • Nathan Brown's penetrating account of the development and operation of the courts in the Arab world is based on fieldwork in Egypt and the Gulf. The book addresses several important questions. Why, for example, did Egypt's political leaders construct an independent judicial system that limited their own authority? And why does such a system appeal to Arab rulers outside Egypt? While most accounts stress the role of imperialism or liberal ideology, the author maintains that the primary purpose of the system is to provide support for the officially sanctioned order. The model offers similar attractions for other Arab rulers. From the theoretical perspective, the book will contribute to the debates about liberal legality, political change and the relationship between law and society in the developing world. It will be read by scholars of the Middle East, law students and those interested in the history of law and its evolution.

Britain and the Politics of Modernization in the Middle East, 1945–1958
  • Paul W. T. Kingston
  • Published online:
    09 October 2009
    Print publication:
    22 August 1996
  • In an historically informed critique of the theory and practice of development assistance, this book examines Britain's foreign aid programme in the Middle East in the 1940s and 1950s. After an assessment of the origins of what was dubbed the 'peasants, not pashas' policy - notably the link between development, sterling balances, and post-war imperial strategy - the author focuses on planning and policy debates between British development experts, their American rivals, and Middle Eastern technocrats. These debates, which centred on issues such as afforestation, irrigation, and rural credit, raise important questions about the nature and limits of the development process within the Middle East and the Third World which the author explores in his analysis. This 1996 book will be of interest to development practitioners and scholars in development studies, as well as to students of Middle East and imperial history.

Bazaar and State in Iran
  • The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace
  • Arang Keshavarzian
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    12 April 2007
  • The Tehran Bazaar has always been central to the Iranian economy and indeed, to the Iranian urban experience. Arang Keshavarzian's fascinating book compares the economics and politics of the marketplace under the Pahlavis, who sought to undermine it in the drive for modernisation and under the subsequent revolutionary regime, which came to power with a mandate to preserve the bazaar as an 'Islamic' institution. The outcomes of their respective policies were completely at odds with their intentions. Despite the Shah's hostile approach, the bazaar flourished under his rule and maintained its organisational autonomy to such an extent that it played an integral role in the Islamic revolution. Conversely, the Islamic Republic implemented policies that unwittingly transformed the ways in which the bazaar operated, thus undermining its capacity for political mobilisation. Arang Keshavarizian's book affords unusual insights into the politics, economics and society of Iran across four decades.

Secularism, Gender and the State in the Middle East
  • The Egyptian Women's Movement
  • Nadje Al-Ali
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    27 July 2000
  • A considerable literature has been devoted to the study of Islamic activism. By contrast, Nadje Al-Ali's book explores the anthropological and political significance of secular-oriented activism by focusing on the women's movement in Egypt. In so doing, it challenges stereotypical images of Arab women as passive victims and demonstrates how they fight for their rights and confront conservative forces. Al-Ali's book also takes issue with prevailing constructions of 'the West' and its perceived dichotomous relation to 'the East'. The argument is constructed around interviews which afford fascinating insights into the history of the women's movement in Egypt, notions about secularism and how Islamist constituencies have impacted on women's activism generally. The balance between the empirical and conceptual material is adeptly handled. The author frames her work in the context of current theoretical debates in Middle Eastern and post-colonial scholarship: while some of the ideas are complex, her lucid style means they are always comprehensible; the book will therefore appeal to students, as well as to scholars in the field.

Contesting the Saudi State
  • Islamic Voices from a New Generation
  • Madawi Al-Rasheed
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    30 November 2006
  • The terms Wahhabi or Salafi are seen as interchangeable and frequently misunderstood by outsiders. However, as Madawi al-Rasheed explains in a fascinating exploration of Saudi Arabia in the twenty-first century, even Saudis do not agree on their meaning. Under the influence of mass education, printing, new communication technology, and global media, they are forming their own conclusions and debating religion and politics in traditional and novel venues, often violating official taboos and the conservative values of the Saudi society. Drawing on classical religious sources, contemporary readings and interviews, Al-Rasheed presents an ethnography of consent and contest, exploring the fluidity of the boundaries between the religious and political. Bridging the gap between text and context, the author also examines how states and citizens manipulate religious discourse for purely political ends, and how this manipulation generates unpredictable reactions whose control escapes those who initiated them.

Page 3 of 4