This book examines the most turbulent period in the history of Jordan's ruling house, the six years following the assassination of the kingdom's founder, Abdullah (1951-1957). Those years witnessed the country's lone episode of weak monarchy, when the king--the novice Hussein or his ill-starred father, Talal--was not the preeminent political actor in the land. Rather, it was during that time at the regime was left in the hands of a mix of Palestinian, Transjordanian, and Circassian royalists who had never before wielded executive authority inside the kingdom. Based on exclusive interviews and...

The unprecedented political power of the Ottoman imperial harem in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is widely viewed as illegitimate and corrupting. This book examines the sources of royal women's power and assesses the reactions of contemporaries, which ranged from loyal devotion to armed opposition. By examining political action in the context of household networks, Leslie Peirce demonstrates that female power was a logical, indeed an intended, consequence of political structures. Royal women were custodians of sovereign power, training their sons in its use and exercising it...

Written by renowned scholar Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey has established itself as the preferred one-volume history of modern Turkey. It covers the emergence of Turkey over two centuries, from the decline and collapse of the Ottoman Empire up to the present day. In a new chapter, Lewis discusses the origins of his book in the Cold War era and the events that have taken place since its first publication in 1961. This new edition addresses Turkey's emergence as a decidedly Western-oriented power despite internal opposition from neutralists and Islamic fundamentalists....

This is the first serious attempt to understand modern Iraq through a close examination of the political discourse used by the Ba'th regime and its leader, Saddam Hussein. By analyzing political terms, concepts, and idioms as disseminated through the official Iraqi mouthpieces, author Ofra Bengio illuminates Iraq's political culture and the events that these expressions have both reflected and shaped. Not only does this study add to our understanding of the "Saddam enigma;" it also offers a more universal truth: that under any regime, political culture is built on public discourse....

This book aims to alter profoundly the accepted version of the history of post-World War II Egyptian foreign policy. To this end, Doran convincingly demonstrates the absence of any true pan-Arab front from the very beginning of the Arab League. Reconsidering Cairo's policy decisions during the critical years from 1944 to 1948, he proves that Egyptian national interests were always placed before the united Arab front against Israel. Even while participating in the 1948 war with Israel, Egypt regarded Zionism and the Palestine Question as less important than achieving independence from Britain...

Combining international and domestic perspectives, this book analyzes the transformation of the Ottoman Empire over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It views privatization of state lands and the increase of domestic and foreign trade as key factors in the rise of a Muslim middle class, which, increasingly aware of its economic interests and communal roots, then attempted to reshape the government to reflect its ideals.

In this impressive synthesis, William Harris narrates the history of the sectarian communities of Mount Lebanon and its vicinity. He offers a fresh perspective on the antecedents of modern multi-communal Lebanon, tracing the consolidation of Lebanon's Christian, Muslim, and Islamic derived sects from their origins between the sixth and eleventh centuries.

The identities of Maronite Christians, Twelver Shia Muslims, and Druze, the mountain communities, developed alongside assertions of local chiefs under external powers from the Umayyads to the Ottomans. The chiefs began interacting in a...