Kategoria BISAC: History >> Middle East - Egypt (see also Ancient - Egypt)

Egypt has one of the oldest civilizations and proudest national histories in the world, but most military histories treat it as a mere battleground for other great imperial powers such as the Ottoman Empire, the French, and the British. In a lively and stirring narrative, this work tells the untold story of the Egyptian experience. It looks at the lives of Egyptian soldiers fighting at home and abroad, and shows the roles those soldiers and their leaders have played in Middle-Eastern and world history for 500 years--especially in the convulsions that have transformed the Muslim world...

In Egypt, singing and dancing are considered essential on happy occasions. Professional entertainers often perform at weddings and other celebrations, and a host family's prestige rises with the number, expense, and fame of the entertainers they hire. Paradoxically, however, the entertainers themselves are often viewed as disreputable people and are accorded little prestige in Egyptian society.

This paradox forms the starting point of Karin van Nieuwkerk's look at the Egyptian entertainment trade. She explores the lives of female performers and the reasons why work they regard as "a...

Following the rise of Islam, many Jewish communities lived in predominantly Muslim lands. Muslim-Jewish co-existence was not seriously challenged until the modern period when European colonialism and the emergence of Zionism and Arab nationalism led to growing friction and conflict, resulting in the mass departures of Jews from these lands in the middle of the twentieth century.

Jews and Muslims throws light on the history of these communities and on the developments that led to the snapping of ties between Jews and Muslims by focusing on the century before the end of...

The Sudanese working-class town of Atbara is the headquarters of the Sudan railways. Nicknamed "City of Steel and Fire "by Sudanese workers, the town remains a major site of labor activism and radical politics. This book chronicles the struggles of railway workers against the Sudanese colonial and postcolonial governments. Sikainga's text will interest Sudanese scholars, labor historians, and students of radical politics. Based on numerous oral interviews and extensive archival research, this book is destined to become the authoritative text on Sudanese labor history.

For more than 50...

The Kurdish Worker's Party (PKK) is examined here in this text on Kurdish nationalism. Incorporating recent field-based research results and newly translated material on Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK's long-time leader; it explores the nature and the organizational working of the party, from its growth in the late 1970s to its recent shrinkage. A variety of issues are addressed including:

* the views and philosophy of Abdullah Ocalan
* the successes and failures of the PKK in bringing about the Kurdish opposition in Turkey
* the role of PKK's philosophy of recruitment, organizational...

This book provides the first comprehensive study of the evolution of the Iraqi military from the British mandate era to post-Baathist Iraq.

Ethnic and sectarian turmoil is endemic to Iraq, and its armed forces have been intertwined with its political affairs since their creation. This study illustrates how the relationship between the military and the political centre in Iraq has evolved, with the military bringing about three regime changes in Iraqa (TM)s history before being brought under control by Saddam Hussein, up until the 2003 war. The instability that followed was partly due to...

Egyptian efforts to acquire long-range surface-to-surface missiles in the early 1960s carry important lessons for our time, when weapons of mass destruction and charges of politicizing intelligence are key issues.

This new study traces the history of the early Egyptian ballistic missile program, which began with the successful recruitment of German scientists who had experience in Hitler's V1 and V2 missile projects. Yet even as these Germans began their work on developing missiles for Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Israeli intelligence was busy collecting information on...