In the 1990 the Gulf War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Arab-Israeli peace process and the trend to market-driven economies impacted the regional political and economic order of the Arab world dramatically. How do these events affect the processes of Arab integration? Is the idea of an Arab political and economic comunity in the broadest sense no longer viable? What lessons can be learned from recent attempts toward the future of Arab unity? A team of respected political scientists, historians, and economists carefully assesses the state of regional integration and cooperation, and...

The first systematic comparative analysis of political behavior throughout the entire Arab world, from Morocco to Kuwait. In an attempt to explain why the Arab world remains in ferment, Hudson discusses such crucial factors as Arab and Islamic identity, ethnic and religious minorities, the crisis of authority, the effects of imperialism, and modernization.
"An impressive work of scholarship on the political culture and changing society of the entire Arab World. The author gives us a good picture of each country as he pursues his general themes of legitimacy, nationalism, Arabism, and the...

This is a comprehensive political analysis of the PLO. A correspondent in Beirut from 1976 to 1981, Helena Cobban has been able to study developments at close quarters and use documentary sources and first-hand recollections which have never been included in previous Western analyses of the movement. The book maintains that one key to understanding the development of the PLO is an examination of the development of its predominant member-group, Al-Fateh. The first part focuses on the history of Fateh, showing how its interests and the PLO's became intertwined. The latter part discusses the...

The nineteenth century in Egypt was a period of rapid social and economic change, brought about by the country's developing ties with the European economy. Focusing on lower-class women, this study traces changes in the work role and family life of peasant women in the countryside and craftswomen and traders in Cairo, and explores the world of the slave woman. The effects of capitalist transformation on women are studied in detail, using material from the Islamic court records. The effects of the Egyptian process of state formation and colonial rule are discussed: the growth of the state...

This book is an original and perceptive study of Britain's withdrawal from her last Arab Dependencies, based on a combination of first hand experience and extensive research. Glen Balfour-Paul opens by outlining Britain's position in the Middle East at the end of the Second World War. He then presents in three separate chapters a detailed account of the forces that culminated in withdrawal from each of the countries. In the final chapters, the author compares and contrasts the three episodes in terms of Britain's evolving attitude to empire, public pressures from within and outside the...

In 1962, after the war of independence, the new rulers of Algeria inherited a country which had both the manpower and the financial resources needed for development, because of its reserves of oil and natural gas. During the last 26 years there have been discussions and experiments revolving around two problems: whether the economy should be controlled by the government or should be one in which private enterprise (the multi-national companies and their local agents) play a larger part; and whether the main emphasis of economic policy should be on heavy industry or on agriculture and consumer...

Jordan was the most deeply affected of all the Arab nations by Israel's victory in the 1967 war, in which huge tracts of Arab land, including the West Bank, Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights, came under Israel's control. Yet this is the first study to consider the war from the Jordanian perspective. It analyses the reasons for Jordan's unreserved and, to many, unexpected participation and provides a detailed description of the dramatic three days of war, including an analysis of the effects of Egyptian control of the Jordanian-Israeli border. Samir Mutawi's use of interviews...

Severe epidemics of plague, cholera, and typhus swept across Tunisia between the years 1780 and 1900. The society was galvanized into action: medical practitioners, religious authorities, and political leaders all tried to deal with the deadly crises. Muslims had, over many centuries, evolved ideas concerning the origin, prevention, and treatment of epidemic diseases that differed somewhat from those of their European counterparts. With European economic and political expansion that accelerated after the Napoleonic Wars, Muslims found themselves confronted not only by a new source of...

This is the first comprehensive study of the life and works of Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr - an Iraqi scholar who made an important contribution to the renewal of Islamic law and politics in the contemporary Middle East. Executed in 1980, Sadr was the most articulate thinker and a major political actor in the revival of Shi'i learning, which placed Najaf in Southern Iraq at its centre. Dr Chibli Mallat examines the intellectual development of Sadr and his companions who included Ruhullah al-Khumaini and assesses Sadr's innovative approaches to the study of law, economics and banking. The author...

No idea has captured the imagination or expressed the hopes of Arabs in the twentieth century as has Arab nationalism, and perhaps no subject has received so much attention from historians of the Middle East. But, while many historians have explored its intellectual sources, few have considered the social and political environment in which Arab nationalism evolved as an ideological movement. This study attempts to correct the imbalance and, in the process, provides a fascinating interpretation of the rise of the ideology of nationalism within the Arab world. The book focuses on the social and...