The Middle East Journal articles from June 2002

The Middle East Journal archives from June 2002

Editor's note.
June 22, 2002... The Middle East sometimes seems unchanging. The seeming intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the moment, and the persistent problems of poverty, population growth, and a history of authoritarianism can easily lead one to assume...

Foreign aid for promoting democracy in the Arab world.
June 22, 2002... Western and international democratization projects in the Arab world, as elsewhere, have been controversial mainly because, unlike traditional foreign aid through government-to-government channels that strengthened executive institutions,...

Arab education: tradition, growth and reform.(Statistical Data Included)
June 22, 2002... In recent decades, Arab education has achieved substantial growth in quantitative terms, with enrollments and other indicators expanding dramatically, including for females. Arab students can choose from different educational systems. Yet a...

Post-Islamist rumblings in Egypt: the emergence of the Wasat party.
June 22, 2002... This article examines the emergence of the Wasat party initiative in Egypt. Whether such a group constitutes a political development in Islamic groupings in comparison to the traditional paradigm is the main focus. The Wasat is analyzed within...

Anti-Narcotics responses in Jordan.
June 22, 2002... Jordan has long been an important transit route for the smugglers of illicit drugs. As in much of the Arab World, fears are rising over increasing local addiction levels. Amman has been a regional leader in admitting the existence of such a...

Transforming the old: Cairo's new Medieval City.
June 22, 2002... The Islamic architecture of Cairo, as monuments and as historic city, for the past fifty years undervalued, neglected, and increasingly beleaguered on many fronts, is currently the focus of a "massive ", but little publicized, intervention by...

The Committee.
June 22, 2002... by Sun ' Allah Ibrahim. Tr. from Arabic by Mary St. Germain and Charlene Constable. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001. 166 pages. $22.95. A Matter of Fate: the Concept of Fate in the Arab World as Reflected in Modern Arabic...

The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War, and the Future of the Region.
June 22, 2002... by Neamatollah Nojumi. New York: Palgrave, 2002. xii + 231 pages. Chron. Abbrevs. Notes to p. 247. Bibl. to p. 251. Index to p. 260. $65 cloth; $18.95 paper. Afghanistan's Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the...

The Rise and Fall of the Hashimite Kingdom of Arabia.
June 22, 2002... by Joshua Teitelbaum. New York: New York University Press, 2001. xviii + 288 pages. Abbrevs. Bibl. to p. 303. Index to p. 310. $40. Joshua Teitelbaum of Tel Aviv University has written what will become the standard history of the Hashimite...

To Moscow, Not Mecca: The Soviet Campaign Against Islam in Central Asia, 1917-1941.
June 22, 2002... by Shoshana Keller. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2001. xix + 254 pages. Gloss. to p. 260. Bibl. to p. 270. Index to p. 277. About the Author. $64.95. This substantial scholarly work traces the evolution of Tsarist Russian and Soviet...

A Grand Delusion: Democracy and Economic Reform in Egypt.
June 22, 2002... by Eberhard Kienle. London and New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2001. xiv + 200 pages. Notes to p. 245. Bibl. to p. 267. Index to p. 274. $59.50 cloth; $24.50 paper. The title of this work is misleading, for while Kienle provides a...

Origins of Social Democracy in Modern Iran.
June 22, 2002... by Cosroe Chaqueri. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2001. 197 pages. Chron. Appendix to p. 219. Illust. to p. 257. Notes to p. 327. Refs. to p. 343. Index to p. 352. $40. Cosroe Chaqueri's new book is yet another monographic...

Missing Persians: Discovering Voices in Iranian Cultural History.
June 22, 2002... by Nasrin Rahimieh. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001. xiii + 167 pages. Works cited to p. 176. Index to p. 191. $34.95 cloth; $17.95 paper. In Missing Persians, Nasrin Rahimieh explores the questions of identity with which...

In the Shadow of the Ayatollah: A CIA Hostage in Iran.
June 22, 2002... by William J. Daugherty. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001. xviii + 222 pages. Notes to p. 243. Bibl. to p. 250. Index to p. 258. $29.95. This work is an enthralling firsthand account of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-1981. In...

The Invention and Decline of Israeliness: State, Society, and the Military.
June 22, 2002... by Baruch Kimmerling. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA and London, UK: University of California Press, 2001. x + 237 pages. Refs. to p. 236. Index to p. 268. $45. Most readers of this journal are probably familiar with the fierce debate in...

The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Israeli History Textbooks, 1948-2000.
June 22, 2002... by Elie Podeh. Westport, CT and London, UK: Bergin & Garvey, 2001. xii+ 155 pages. Appends. to p. 177. Bibl. to p. 177. Bibl. to p. 196. Index to p. 201. $58. Elie Podeh's book reports on a wide-scale study in which 108 school textbooks of...

Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945-2000.
June 22, 2002... by Melani McAlister. Berkeley, CA, New York, and London: University of California Press, 2001. ix + 276 pages. Acknowledgements to p. 280. Notes to p. 320. Bibl. to p. 346. Filmography to p. 347. Index to p. 358. $50 cloth; $19.95 paper. ...

Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East.
June 22, 2002... by Clement M. Henry and Robert Springborg. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. xxi + 229 pages. Bibl. to p. 240. Index to p. 258. $55 cloth; $20 paper. This volume is a welcome addition to the growing literature on...

Cultural Resistance: Global and Local Encounters in the Middle East.
June 22, 2002... by Samir Khalaf. London, UK: Saqi Books, 2001. 308 pages. Bibl. to p. 322. Index to p. 326. 35 GBP. This is an exceptionally wide-ranging collection of previously published essays and extracts from work in progress. The author addresses...

Rachid Ghannouchi: a Democrat within Islamism.
June 22, 2002... by Azzam S. Tamimi. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. viii + 219 pages. Notes to p. 245. Bibl. to p. 258. Index to p. 268. $49.95. Some may say that the subtitle of this book is an oxymoron, that political Islam is the antithesis of...

Middle East Politics Today: Government and Civil Society.
June 22, 2002... by Tareq Y. Ismael. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2001. xv + 455 pages. Appends. to p. 462. Notes to p. 482. Bibl. to p. 494. Index to p. 510. $59.95. The volume under review, presumably intended mainly as a textbook for...

Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy.
June 22, 2002... by Muhsin Mahdi. Foreword by Charles E. Butterworth. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2001. xvii + 240 pages. Refs. to p. 248. Index to p. 264. $37.50. In his book Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy,...

Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam.
June 22, 2002... by John L. Esposito. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. xii + 160 pages. Notes to p. 168. Gloss. to p. 172. Index to p. 196. $25. John Esposito is one of the most prominent American scholars who has been fully engaged in the...

Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World: the Roots of Sectarianism.
June 22, 2002... by Bruce Masters. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. xiii + 199 pages. Gloss. to p. 201. Bibl. to p. 217. Index to p. 222. $55. Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab Worm is an excellent study of the history of...

Safavid Government Institutions.
June 22, 2002... by Willem Floor. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2001. x + 283 pages. Bibl. to p. 293. Index to p. 311. $29.95 paper. This work follows a tradition established by Vladimir Minorsky, who in 1948 published a translation-cum commentary of...

States and Women's Rights: the Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.
June 22, 2002... by Mounira M. Charrad. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2001. xviii + 241 pages. Tables. Maps. Gloss. to p. 246. Notes to p. 300. Bibl. to p. 317. Index to p. 326. $50. Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco share...