The electronic bazaar

Broadcasting in the Arab World: A Survey of Radio and Television in the Middle East by Douglas A. Boyd. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982. Pp.306, bibliography, index.     

Book notes

An Awakening: The Arab Campaign 1917–18 by Sir Alec Kirkbride. Pp. vi + 134, illustrations, appendices, index. University Press of Arabia, 1 West Street, Tavistock, Devon.

Revolutions and Military Rule in the Middle East: The Arab States. Part II: Egypt, The Sudan, Yemen and Libya by George M. Haddad. New York: Robert Speller and Sons, 1973, Pp. x + 454, illustrations, appendix, bibliography, index; $12.50.

Arab Culture and Society in Change: A Partially Annotated Biblography of Books and Articles in English, French, German and Italian, compiled by the Staff of The Centre d'Etudes pour le Monde Arabe Moderne, St. Joseph's University, Beirut. Beirut: Dar El‐Mashreq, Pp. xli + 318; $15.00.

The Arab Israeli Conflict: A Bibliography of Arabic Books and Publications, compiled and edited by Naim Shahrabani. Jerusalem: Mount Scopus Center for Research on the Palestinian Arabs and Arab‐Israeli Relations. Pp. 301; n.

American and British Doctoral Dissertations on Israel and Palestine in Modern Times, compiled and edited by Frank Joseph Shulman. Ann Arbor: Xerox University Microfilms. Pp. vii + 25; n.p.

Bibliotheca Cisorientalia: An Annotated Checklist of Early English Travel Books on the Near and Middle East, compiled and edited by Richard Bevis. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co. Pp. xviii + 317; U.S.: $29.50, elsewhere: $32.45.

Bidwell's Guide to Government Ministers: Volume 2 : The Arab World 1900–1972, compiled and edited by Robin Bidwell. London: Frank Cass and Co., 1974. Pp. xi + 124; £9.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Arabs at the Crossroads: Political Identity and Nationalism , by Hilal Khashan.
Legislative Politics in the Arab World: the Resurgence of Democratic Institutions , by Abdo Baaklini, Guilain Denoeux and Robert Springborg.
Israel and the Bomb , by Avner Cohen.
Forcing God's Hand: Why Millions Pray for a Quick Rapture-and Destruction of Planet Earth , by Grace Halsell.
Scattered Like Seeds , by Shaw J. Dallal.
Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism , by John D. Cooley.
Historical Dictionary of Islamic Fundamentalist Movements in the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey , by Ahmad S. Moussalli.
The Making of the Modern Gulf States: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman , by Rosemarie Said Zahlan.     

Grass: A motion picture dealing with a persian migratory tribe

Islam in a World of Nation‐States. By James P. Piscatori. Cambridge University Press. 1986. Pp. 193. Illus. Index. £8.95.

The Arab Radicals. By Adeed Dawisha. New York. Council on Foreign Relations. 1986. Pp. 173. Index. $17.50.

The Arab Military Option. By Saad el Shazly. San Francisco. American Mideast Research. 1986. Pp. 329. Maps. Bibliog. Index. Price not stated.     

The meanings of oriental masquerade in T.E. Lawrence’s Arabian ventures

This article explores the changing trajectory of T.E. Lawrence’s interaction with the Arab East on the eve of modernity. It traces his pre-First World War scholarly interest in Levantine antiquities (his archaeological expeditions in Syria), through to his subsequent military engagement in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918). An analysis of Lawrence’s adoption of various forms of Middle-Eastern attire provides a narrative of the events that led to his metamorphosis from a passive scholar into an active soldier. The article examines the homoerotic strands in Lawrence’s assumption of Oriental disguise and highlights its metaphorical significance vis-à-vis the political marriage of British imperial interests and Arab nationalist ambitions in the Arab campaign. The article finally draws on the implications of the Anglo–Arab alliance and its impact on changing the region and altering the image of the ‘Unchanging East’.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy , by John L. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation , by Barbara Slavin. Power and Succession in Arab Monarchies: A Reference Guide , by Joseph A. Kechichian. Beyond the Façade: Political Reform in the Arab World , edited by marina Ottaway and Julia Choucair‐Vizoso. Democratization and Development: New Political Strategies for the Middle East , by Dietrich Jung, ed. Worlds at War: The 2,500‐Year Struggle between East and West , by Anthony Pagden.     

Democratization in Gulf Monarchies: A New Challenge to the GCC

Dr. Kéchichian is the author of Succession in Saudi Arabia (Palgrave, 2001; Beirut and London: Dar Al Saqi, 2003 [in Arabic]); Oman and the World: The Emergence of an Independent Foreign Policy (RAND, 1995); and coauthor, with R. Hrair Dekmejian, of The Just Prince: A Manual of Leadership (London: Saqi Books, 2003). His most recent study, Succession in Arab Monarchies , written under a Smith Richardson Foundation grant, is forthcoming in 2005.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Saudi Arabia and the United States, Birth of a Security Partnership, by Parker T. Hart.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , by David E. Long.
Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent , by Mamoun Fandy.
Murder in the Name of God: The Plot to Kill Yitzhak Rabin , by Michael Karpin and Ina Friedman.
Islam in the United States of America , by Sulayman S. Nyang.
Contrasts and Solutions in the Caucasus , ed. by Ole Hoiris and Sefa Martin Yurukel.
Minorities and the State in the Arab World , edited by Ofra Bengio and Gabriel Ben-Dor
Arab National Communism in the Jewish State , by Ilana Kaufman     

Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Haram al-Sharif: A Pan-Islamic or Palestinian Nationalist Cause?

The World Islamic Conference, held in Jerusalem in 1931 under the auspices of Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Supreme Muslim Council, marked a turning point in the Palestinian nationalist struggle as well as in the struggle between the two main factions—the more extremist one led by Hajj Amin and the more moderate Opposition—for control of the Palestinian leadership. The Conference, though co-sponsored by Shawkat ‘Ali and the Muslim Indian Congress, and ostensibly representative of the worldwide community of Muslims, was effectively dominated by Hajj Amin and his Palestinian supporters. Through his control of its proceedings, Hajj Amin was able to redefine the Palestinian nationalist cause as essentially a pan-Islamic one, in connection with the perceived need to defend the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem against Zionist encroachment. Contrasted here with the World Islamic Conference (and held concurrently with it) is the Second Arab Orthodox Congress. Whereas the World Islamic Conference sought to redefine an issue arguably specific to Palestine as pan-Islamic, the local Christian Orthodox community, in keeping with its desire to Arabise Palestine's Greek Orthodox Church (hence their self-designation as the Arab Orthodox Church in Palestine), sought to redefine what was essentially a religious matter—concerning the succession of the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem—in nationalist terms. It was not simply a matter of differing ideological perspectives; defining the cause of the Haram al-Sharif as a pan-Islamic one also served a political objective, namely the enhancement of Hajj Amin's position vis-à-vis his political rivals. Nonetheless, whatever the motivations involved, this development was a factor in the marginalisation of the Christian Arab component of the Palestinian nationalist movement. Whereas at the start of the British Mandate they had played a role disproportionately large relative to their actual numbers, by its end, their role in the nationalist movement had diminished almost to the point of near inconsequence, as evidenced, for instance, by their marginal involvement in the Arab Revolt (1936–1939).     

Time and Politics: Parliament and the Culture of Modernity in Britain and the British World

Time and Politics: Parliament and the Culture of Modernity in Britain and the British World. By Ryan A. Vieira (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp.vi + 199. £60.00 (cloth).     

Memory and Migration in the Shadow of War: Australia's Greek Immigrants after World War II and the Greek Civil War

Memory and Migration in the Shadow of War: Australia's Greek Immigrants after World War II and the Greek Civil War. By Joy Damousi (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp.274. AU$145.00 (cloth).     

Arab Booksellers and Bookshops in the Age of Printing, 1850–1914

The emergence of massive printing in the Arab Middle East in the nineteenth century entailed a multiple set of changes. As well as the production of written texts in unprecedented quantities and the rise of a big reading public, that historic shift also gave birth to a range of diffusion channels-from bookshops to public libraries and from newspaper agents to reading clubs-which carried the printed works to their audiences. This article examines a small section of this scene: the growth, spreading and changing characteristics of book dealerships and bookshops in the Arab Ottoman provinces during the formative half-century prior to World War I. Exploring this mechanism casts light on the nature and pace of printing assimilation in the region, projecting it as a rather dramatic makeover.     

Democratization in the Middle East and North Africa: A More Ambidextrous Process?

Democratization is always an ambidextrous process. On the one hand, it triggers a universalistic set of norms, events, processes and symbols. On the other hand, democratization involves a much more particularistic set of ‘realistic’ adaptations to the structures and circumstances of individual countries. In analysing the structures and conjunctures of countries in the Arab World during the past decades, scholars looked at them from the perspective of persistent authoritarianism. This essay exploits democratization theory – as well as its converse ? by analysing the universalistic set of events, processes and symbols of democratization elsewhere in the world, and then identifying the particularistic characteristics of timing, location and coincidence that seem likely to affect the political outcome of regime change in the countries affected by recent popular uprisings in the Arab World.     

Mother's Darlings of the South Pacific: The Children of Indigenous Women and U.S. Servicemen,World War II

Mother's Darlings of the South Pacific: The Children of Indigenous Women and U.S. Servicemen, World War II. Edited by Judith A. Bennett and Angela Wanhalla (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2016), pp.xxiv + 379, US$65.00 (hb).     

Turkey's entrance into the League of Nations

The Making of the Modern Near East, 1792–1923 by M.E. Yapp. London, 1987. Pp. xii + 404. £14.99. The Near East since the First World War by M.E. Yapp. London: Longman, 1991. Pp. xvii + 526. £15.99.

Historical Discord in the Nile Valley by Gabriel R. Warburg. London: Hurst &; Co., 1992. Pp. xv + 210 pages, maps and photographs. £27.50.

British Romantic Writers and the East: Anxieties of Empire by Nigel Leask. Cambridge Studies in Romanticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. £35.00.

The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity; Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century by Abraham Marcus. New York, Columbia University Press, 1989. Pp. xvi + 418. Maps, appendix, glossary, bibliography and index. US$ 17.

The Making of the Arab‐Israeli Conflict, 1947–1951 by Ilan Pappé. London: I.B. Taurus, 1992. Pp.324.

Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate by Leila Ahmed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992. Pp.viii + 296. $30.00.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article:
Madawi Al–Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia
Mohammed El–Nawawy and Adel Iskandar, Al–Jazeera: How the Free Arab News Network Scooped the World and Changed the Middle East
Steven Spiegel, The Dynamics of Middle East Nuclear Proliferation
Donald Wagner, Dying in the Land of Promise: Palestine and Palestinian Christianity from Pentecost to 2000
Charles M. Sennott, The Body and the Blood: The Holy Land's Christians at the Turn of a New Millennium, A Reporter's Journey
Mohamed Bin Huwaidin, China's Relations with Arabia and the Gulf 1949–1999     

Religious Politics in Mandate Palestine: The Christian Orthodox Community Controversy in the Thirties

The paper elaborates on the power struggle over the patriarchal election that took place in the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem in the 1930s and the key role of the Mandatory Authorities in its resolution. The lengthy electoral process reignited the old controversy between the Greek hierarchy and the Arab congregation over the institution’s alleged national character and centralized administrative structure. Consequently, the conflict became entangled in the Arab quest for emancipation from Greek ‘cultural imperialism’. The British position in the conflict evolved according to two stages: a) an early pro-Arab stance, determined by British colonial objectives in Palestine; and b) a late pro-Greek stance, as a result of the new British diplomatic priorities at the eve of the Second World War. The British government followed a ‘divide and rule’ policy: it abstained from resolving the conflict, while exploiting the existing inter-communal divisions to its own political ends.     

The ‘Missing Dimension’: Britain's Secret War against France in Syria and Lebanon, 1942–45 – Part II

The article provides the ‘missing dimension’ in the historiography of Syria and Lebanon in the Second World War. It is based on secret British and Syrian documents obtained by the French intelligence from their agents in the British Legation in Beirut and the Syrian government in Damascus, never published before. These documents, recently discovered by the author, shed new light on the activities of the British intelligence agencies in the Middle East during and after the war. They reveal that these agencies played an important role in shaping Britain's policy in the region by securing the tacit collaboration of prominent Arab nationalists in Syria and Lebanon and other Arab countries. In Syria (and Palestine), Britain conducted a ‘dual policy’: one purported to mediate between the French and the Syrians, details of which are found in British archives, and a tacit policy aimed to evict France, of which few traces remain in official documentation. Hence de Gaulle's accusations that Britain secretly engineered the expulsion of France from the Levant were indeed justified, and that the Syrians' claim that their country was the first Arab state to secure complete independence is questionable. The article also discloses that Britain was behind the Hashemite schemes to integrate Syria in a Greater Syria or an Iraqi-led Hashemite confederation. Copies of more than one hundred of the documents are annexed to the article, including a secret agreement from 29 May 1945 revealing that President Quwatli was coerced into granting Britain a dominant position in Syria.     

C. Reviews and notes of recent bibliographies

i. Social Research on Arabs in Israel 1948–1977: Trends and an Annotated Bibliography. Compiled by Sammy Smooha and Ora Cibulski. Ramat Gan, Israel, Turtledove Publishing, 1978. pp.148. $11.00.

ii. University of Utah: Aziz S.Atiya Library for Middle East Studies, Supplement Two to Volume One (University of Utah Middle East Library Catalogue Series). Salt Lake City, University of Utah Libraries, 1979. pp.892.

iii. Bibliografiya stran Afriki i Arabskogo vostoka: ukazatel’ literatury na russkom yazyke, opublikovannoi v SSSR v 1917–67 gg. Vol.I: Afrika. Vol.II: Arabskie stranny. Moskva, Nauka, 1979. 2 vols. 15r.

iv. Arab‐World Newspapers in the Library of Congress: A List (Near East Series). Prepared by George Dimitri Selim. Washington D.C., Library of Congress, 1980. pp.v, 85.

v. Libyan Studies Bulletins: Current Awareness Service (Publications of the Libyan Studies Centre: Bibliographic Series, 3). Tripoli, The Library of the Libyan Studies Centre, 1980‐. 1 – . pp.vii, 75 (European‐language titles), 125 (Arabic‐language titles).     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East , by Martin Indyk. We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work , by Jimmy Carter. A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America's Relations with the Muslim World , by Emile Nakhleh. Egypt After Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam, and Democracy in the Arab World , by Bruce K. Rutherford. Faysal: Saudi Arabia's King for All Seasons , by Joseph A. Kéchichian. What Kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq , by Nadje al‐Ali and Nicola Pratt. Kemalism in Turkish Politics: The Republican People's Party, Secularism and Nationalism , by Sinan Ciddi. European and Turkish Voices in Favour and Against Turkish Accession to the European Union. Christiane Timmerman, Dirk Rochtus, and Sara Mels, eds.