{"id":320,"date":"2008-07-21T06:10:09","date_gmt":"2008-07-21T10:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/mesh\/2008\/07\/summer_reading_2008\/"},"modified":"2009-06-19T13:47:56","modified_gmt":"2009-06-19T17:47:56","slug":"summer_reading_2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/2008\/07\/summer_reading_2008\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer reading 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"With August fast approaching, MESH has asked its members to recommend a book for summer reading. (For more information on a book, or to place an order with Amazon through the MESH bookstore, click on the book title or cover.)<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Daniel Byman<\/a> ::<\/strong> Yaroslav Trofimov’s The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam’s Holiest Shrine and the Birth of al-Qaeda<\/em><\/a> (Doubleday, 2007), is a fast-paced, informative, and tight book about how Saudi zealots took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979. Trofimov appears to have excellent access to some sources that others have not tapped, and he sheds light on an event that has long been known but not well understood in the West. We learn a tremendous amount not only about the bloody combat in the holy shrine itself, but also about Saudi ineptitude and the motivations of the zealots. The only annoying thing about the book is that the author repeatedly stretches to make links to Al Qaeda that are at best weak and at times rather fanciful. My guess is an editor pushed him to have a “9\/11 link” even though the rest of the text is gripping and illuminating without tying it to Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>J. Scott Carpenter<\/a> ::<\/strong> Summer reading should be stimulating, informative, and, most crucially, fun. Robin Wright’s new book, Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East<\/em><\/a>, while flawed, fits the bill. Wright whisks the reader from Morocco to Iran introducing us to the men and women engaged in the contest for the soul of the region, the dreams and shadows of her title. For a region associated with autocrats and suicide bombers, the reformers she introduces are like a breath of mountain air. Their dreams are our own. But like haze on a hot summer day, those dreams are threatened by men of dark vision such as Iran’s Ahmadinejad, Hamas’ Mishal and Hezbollah’s Nasrallah, all of whom Wright lets speak for themselves. She’s an optimist in the end, but be fair-warned, she is also partisan and ambiguous about U.S. power to shape the region (the chapter on Iraq is best avoided). Still, there’s more right than wrong here. (Penguin, 2008.)<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Mark T. Clark<\/a> :: <\/strong>Antonio Giustozzi’s Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan<\/em><\/a> (Columbia University Press, 2007) traces the emergence of the neo-Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taliban in late 2001. He notes how the Taliban have become more flexible in interpreting Sharia, using innovative guerrilla and terrorist strategies as well as technology in their quest for power. He shows that neo-Taliban successes have stemmed from three things. First, the Taliban have exploited the political weaknesses of Afghanistan’s new government, especially between central and local arms. Second, they have adopted new strategies and tactics in fighting the Afghan army, its militias and its “foreign” supporters. And third, the insurgents have confronted an inconsistent and ineffective counter-insurgency strategy against them. When Giustozzi pieces together the recent history, he is at his strongest; when he interprets elements of strategy, he is at his weakest. The work is worth reading, if only to understand some of the recent “successes” the insurgency has scored and anticipate some counters we may soon employ.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Steven A. Cook<\/a> ::<\/strong> When I saw Aaron David Miller at the Council on Foreign Relations shortly after his book was published, he told me that it would make me \u201claugh and cry.\u201d The author knows his work, as I found myself cackling in between moments of great despair while making my way through Miller\u2019s terrific account of his time working the Arab-Israeli account. I can pile the number of Arab-Israeli conflict books ceiling-high in my office, but what makes The Much Too Promised Land<\/em><\/a> different is its sobering and thus refreshing examination of American policy. Miller, it seems, has lost patience with Arabs, Israelis, and the follies of American policymakers who have been led down the garden path of the peace process by visions of the Nobel prize. I hope the next team that takes on the unforgiving task of managing the Arab-Israeli conflict learns the lessons that Miller has taught us. (Random House, 2008.)
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\"\"<\/a>Adam Garfinkle<\/a> :: <\/strong>About 28 years ago, a Chicago publisher called Nelson-Hall put out The Last Crusade: A Negotiator’s Middle East Handbook<\/em><\/a>, by William R. Brown. The book is an analysis of Henry Kissinger’s step-by-step diplomatic odyssey from Kilometer 101 to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, written by a U.S. official who was along for much of the ride. As far as I can tell, the book was not widely reviewed (perhaps because of its unfortunate title; who knows?). Foreign Affairs<\/em> just squibbed it, with the then doyen of the Middle East section, John C. Campbell, devoting two whole sentences to Brown’s effort. But the second sentence was this: “Brown’s background in public service is largely in the Arab field, and his analysis of Arab perceptions is particularly apt.”<\/p>\n

Damn right it was. Before political correctness made it uncomfortable for State Department Arabists even to believe what they saw with their own eyes, let alone to write about it, Brown evinced a knack for keen insight, honest analysis and crisp prose. Consider, for just one out of dozens of examples, this remark: “The Arab perceives a single community of faith and language that contrasts sharply with our emphasis on competing but mutually adjusting political factions. In the West, politics has a flavor of controlled conflict that the Arab regards as destructive to community…. In the Middle East the purpose of political institutions is to facilitate the constant unfolding or revelation of a popular consensus. According to the liberal democratic norms of the West, political institutions are dedicated to enacting the wishes of a tolerant majority.”<\/p>\n

The Last Crusade<\/em> is not in print\u2014hasn’t been for decades\u2014but copies are available<\/a> through Amazon. It’s fun to locate Brown’s more general conclusions, distilled out of the dense diplomatic interactions of the Kissingerian era, and throw them into the headwinds of today’s Middle Eastern storms to see how they fly. On the whole, they fly pretty well.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Michael Horowitz<\/a> :: <\/strong>While it is a bit older, I would like to encourage people that have not already done so to go out and purchase a copy of The Age of Sacred Terror<\/em><\/a> by Dan Benjamin and Steve Simon (Random House, 2002). The book remains one of the best descriptions of Al Qaeda in the period up until 9\/11. The rich historical detail, supplemented by the insights Benjamin and Simon gained from working on terrorism and Al Qaeda-related issues as National Security Staff members during the Clinton administration, provides a great deal of important information. They describe both the inner workings of Al Qaeda from its genesis through 9\/11 and the efforts by the United States government to respond. Whether as an introductory text for advanced undergraduates interested in terrorism issues or a handy reference tool for more advanced scholars, The Age of Sacred Terror<\/em> significantly contributes to our understanding of Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Raymond Ibrahim<\/a> ::<\/strong> One of the most informative books I\u2019ve read on Sunni Islam\u2019s notions of international affairs\u2014the whens, whys, whats, and hows, of warfare and peace\u2014is appropriately titled War and Peace in the Law of Islam<\/em><\/a> (reprint, The Lawbook Exchange, 2006), by the late Johns Hopkins professor, Majid Khadduri, himself a former Baghdadi jurist. What especially makes this book valuable is that the earliest edition was originally written in 1941\u2014that is, some decades before the reign of political correctness infiltrated academia, stifling the sort of conclusions that Khadduri makes (e.g., that jihad is an eternal obligation). Indeed, though Khadduri was a well-respected scholar and never accused of having any “anti-Arab\/Islam” agendas (he was, after all, an Arab and a Muslim), the straightforward assertions he makes in this book, if made today by another scholar, are liable to classify the latter as an \u201cIslamophobe.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Josef Joffe<\/a> ::<\/strong> Weighing in at about 3 pounds, and numbering almost 800 pages, Michael B. Oren’s Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present<\/em><\/a> (Norton, 2007) is not exactly beach-time reading. But the book should be on the shelf of anybody who takes a serious interest in the history of America’s involvement in the Arab\/Muslim world. Even before the Constitution was written in 1787, the fledgling republic was already embroiled in conflict\u2014when, in 1784, a Boston ship was seized by Moroccan pirates. In fact, that conflict was one reason for the constitutional convention in Philadelphia: how to create national institutions (like a navy) that would deal with the brigands of North Africa. Remember Ronald Reagan’s airstrike against Qadhafi in 1986, in retaliation against a terror attack against U.S. soldiers in Berlin? A haunting precedent is Tripoli’s declaration of war on the United States in 1801. So America’s entanglement in the Middle East is as old as the republic itself, and this is why Oren’s book makes for such important and instructive reading in these breathless, indeed, a-historical times. As a side-benefit, this book will dispense once and for all with the myth of isolationism. As Oren shows, the United States was embroiled in world politics from day one.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Martin Kramer<\/a> ::<\/strong> It being summer, I finally found time to read Mohsin Hamid’s novella, The Reluctant Fundamentalist<\/em><\/a> (Harcourt, 2007). What leads (or drives) young Muslim men to terrorism, and “why do they hate us”? Hamid has given us a thesis in the guise of a thriller that takes the reader on an odyssey from Princeton’s campus to a high-powered valuation firm in midtown Manhattan to the alleys of Lahore. A young Pakistani comes to America, rises rapidly, finds a semblance of love, ignores contradictions\u2014and then tumbles into the great divide. All of this he narrates to a mysterious American in an unforgettable voice, and anticipation of the climax will keep you hanging to the end. The thesis: America has its own unique way of inspiring self-loathing in others, even those it embraces\u2014and it comes back to haunt us. (Think Sayyid Qutb and Edward Said.) There is a very different way to tell this story, but Hamid tells his version grippingly.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Walter Laqueur<\/a> ::<\/strong> I have been reading Iu. N. Golubchikov and R.A. Mnatsakanian, Islamizatsiia Rossii: Trevozhnye stsenarii budushchego<\/em><\/a> (Islamization of Russia: Alarming Future Scenarios)<\/em> (Veche, 2005). This book deals with problems widely ignored in the West (and also by the Russian leadership, overwhelmed and preoccupied by the good fortune of oil and gas royalties). The difficulties facing Russia differ in some ways from those confronting Western Europe, but in the longer run are even more formidable. Like some Russian experts, I believe it doubtful that Russia will be able to hold on for very long to the Northern Caucasus\u2014to mention only one problem.
\n.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Bernard Lewis<\/a> ::<\/strong> The Ottoman Empire was the longest-lived regional regime in the Middle East since antiquity; it was also the most recent, and left enduring traces. \u015e\u00fckr\u00fc Hanio\u011flu’s A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire<\/em><\/a> (Princeton University Press, 2008) is a major contribution to the better understanding of the region. His account is based on intimate knowledge of the Ottoman archives, as well as of many other sources, both internal and external. Concerned with trends more than events, this book illuminates the ideas and movements that shaped the course of history.<\/p>\n

Two processes of change are of particular relevance. One is that of identity and loyalty, variously determined by faith, place, and blood; another is the theory and practice of government, evolving from authoritarian to democratic and\/or dictatorial. Some of the words in later use, notably “constitution” and “revolution,” acquire special resonance against the late Ottoman background. All this is of obvious relevance to the better understanding of the present-day Middle East.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Walter Reich<\/a> :<\/strong>:<\/strong> What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism<\/a>,<\/em> by Alan B. Krueger (Princeton University Press, 2007) is a necessary and superb book. <\/span>It demolishes the myth that poverty breeds terrorism, especially Islamist terrorism. To be sure, this myth was demolished many times before Krueger’s book appeared. But probably because it\u2019s such a simple and widely-embraced explanation in the realm of ordinary crime\u2014one that, moreover, suggests a simple solution (in this case, some kind of anti-poverty program in the Muslim world)\u2014it was a myth that refused to die. <\/span> World leaders such as Bill Clinton and Shimon Peres, as well as a panoply of other high government officials, theologians, journalists, intellectuals and Middle East specialists, all of whom should have known better, repeatedly resurrected this myth. Krueger’s demolition of the myth is probably the most effective and sustained one to date. <\/span>I\u2019m sure, though, that, like so many characters in contemporary action movies and video games, “poverty breeds terrorism” will prove impervious to Krueger’s on-target bullets and will rise again and yet again. <\/span>The argument that the gang member in West Side Story<\/em> sarcastically cites to explain his criminal behavior\u2014that he became depraved because he\u2019d been deprived\u2014will, quite seriously and foolishly, continue to be applied to the depravities of terrorism. <\/span>As it happens, I discovered the book only when asked to review it; my full review is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Michael Reynolds<\/a> ::<\/strong> Although for much of the 20th century most people regarded the Caucasus as an exotic borderland of Russia, it has been an essential part of the Middle East from the dawn of history. Its peoples are bound to those of the Middle East by language, culture, religion and civilization. Today the Caucasus is again an inextricable part of the politics of the Middle East. It is also a fiendishly complicated region. It boasts a truly mind-boggling variety of ethnicities and linguistic groups (fascination with that diversity is not a modern preoccupation: astonished Arab invaders in the seventh century dubbed the Caucasus jabal al-lusun<\/em>, “the mountain of languages”). It is the site of not only some of the oldest lands of Islam, but also the most ancient living Christian civilizations in the world, the Georgian and Armenian. In more recent centuries, Persian, Turkish, and Russian civilization have all indelibly stamped the Caucasus (and each in turn has been stamped by the Caucasus) as they jockeyed and struggled for dominance. The contemporary Caucasus remains in important ways unchanged: polyglot, culturally rich, and riven by often bitter internal and external rivalries.<\/p>\n

However intimidating the complexity of the Caucasus may be, greenhorn and old hand alike will benefit from Charles King’s The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus<\/em><\/a> (Oxford University Press, 2008). In a single volume, King manages to pull off the seemingly impossible task of presenting a portrait of the region as a whole, and one that is wonderfully written as it simultaneously informs, entertains, challenges, and stimulates.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Philip Carl Salzman<\/a> ::<\/strong> An academic colleague said to me that, before Israel, Muslims and Jews rubbed along well enough. Enmity toward Jews, he felt, stemmed from Jewish (colonial) immigration to Palestine. Some specialists have recently made a case that Muslim anti-Semitism flowered under the ideological ministrations of the Nazis. The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History<\/em><\/a> by Andrew Bostom (Prometheus Books, 2008), a compendium largely of original texts from the Quran forward, makes a different case: The most extreme prejudicial animus against Jews is integral to Islamic thought and deed from Muhammad, and is honored by his many successors through the centuries with determination and energy. Introduced by Bostom’s 174-page overview, this collection of documents, of Muslims speaking for themselves, and observers reporting historical events, is extensive and convincing, illuminating and distressing, and will break through the many pious obfuscations that often pass for Western commentary on Islam.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Robert Satloff<\/a> :: <\/strong>Arab principals rarely write their memoirs, and such books are even rarer in English. Americans and Israelis live in a tell-all culture; theirs is a world largely without secrets anymore. By contrast, Arab leaders, ministers, courtiers, and hangers-on may speak in whispers but they rarely put their tales in print. The exceptions\u2014like memoirs by Sadat and King Hussein\u2014are mainly stylized versions of history written to burnish images, not to explain politics or policy. In this light, The Arab Center<\/em><\/a>, Marwan Muasher’s memoir of his public service, is wonderfully refreshing\u2014even beyond its often fascinating content and its courageous call for moderation in a region that knows too little of it. The “center” of the title refers to a political center, neither Islamist right nor Nasserist left, but it is a subtle reference to the fact that Muasher\u2014Jordan’s first ambassador to Israel, an ambassador to Washington, a foreign minister and a deputy prime minister\u2014had a center-aisle seat throughout a turbulent period in Jordanian and wider Middle East politics. That inside look iinto a largely closed world is reason enough to commend this thoughtful book. (Yale University Press, 2008.)<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Tamara Cofman Wittes<\/a> ::<\/strong> Every year, my students, my cousins, and random strangers ask me to recommend a single book that provides a good introduction to the contemporary Middle East. Very few of those asking are willing wade through something as edifying as Albert Hourani’s A History of the Arab Peoples<\/em>. Let me recommend, as an alternative for the general reader, a delightful memoir by the scholar R. Stephen Humphreys entitled Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a Troubled Age<\/em><\/a> (2d ed., University of California Press, 2005). Personal, readable, and thoughtful, Humphreys’s essays hit all the key issues (Islamism, demographics, oil curse, etc.) while weaving in history and personal narrative.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Michael Young <\/a>:: <\/strong>I highly recommend Bernard Rougier\u2019s Everyday Jihad<\/em><\/a> (Harvard University Press, 2007) about the development of militant Islam in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp next to the Lebanese city of Sidon. Rougier\u2019s thesis is that trans-national militant Islam is now so dominant in the camp that “a considerable part of the population has freed itself from the national Palestinian framework and is no longer governed by a nationalist universe.” The thesis is debatable, and I happen to disagree. But Rougier was one of the first to document the rise of Salafist groups in the camp\u2014groups that have indeed come to play a central role in the politics of Ain al-Hilweh. My quibble is whether Palestinians have psychologically freed themselves from the preeminence of a nationalist universe\u2014whether Peshawar can ever count for more than Jerusalem or Haifa.<\/p>\n

Rougier\u2019s merit is to constantly come back to Lebanon and investigate on the ground. Indeed he did research for his book inside Ain al-Hilweh. He knows the Salafists well, understands the value of reportage, and speaks and reads Arabic fluently. Everyday Jihad<\/em> is a fine example of a type of research on Lebanon sorely lacking, with so many scholars manacled to a desk, or a prepaid ideology. The country is much more interesting when the scholar is also a sociologist and a journalist. Rougier shows why.<\/p>\n

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With August fast approaching, MESH has asked its members to recommend a book for summer reading. (For more information on a book, or to place an order with Amazon through the MESH bookstore, click on the book title or cover.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1620,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2268,40,2448,2270,2293,2261,2051,2387,2408,2418,2515,2393,2517,2284,2260,2321],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-garfinkle","category-books","category-daniel-byman","category-j-scott-carpenter","category-josef-joffe","category-mark-t-clark","category-martin-kramer","category-michael-horowitz","category-michael-reynolds","category-michael-young","category-philip-carl-salzman","category-robert-satloff","category-steven-a-cook","category-tamara-cofman-wittes","category-walter-laqueur","category-walter-reich"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1620"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1101,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions\/1101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}