The Modern Middle East

"This book is the first introductory textbook on the modern Middle East to foreground the urban, rural, cultural and women's histories of the region over its political and economic history. Distancing himself from more traditional modernizing approaches, Ilan Pappe is concerned with the ideological question of whom we investigate in the past rather than how we investigate the past. Pappe begins his narrative at the end of the First World War with the Ottoman heritage, and concludes at the present day with the political discourse of Islam." This second edition has been brought right up to date with recent events, and includes a new chapter on the media revolution and the effect of media globalization on the Middle East, and a revised and expanded discussion on modern Iranian history.

To allay any fears of bias, Pappe (political science, U. of Haifa, Israel) states in his preface his belief that Israel would benefit from being more a part of the Middle East, a view that he says nearly lost him his teaching position in 2002. Designed as an undergraduate textbook, the text uses a comparative approach, which effectively conveys the continuity of experience shared among Arabs throughout the broad area of North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, the Arabian peninsula, and the Gulf states. Two introductory chapters on political and economic history set the broader context. The main text focuses on the experience of everyday people from Ottoman and colonial times through the present. Rural and urban history, popular culture, music, literature, theatre and other media, women, and the many faces of Islam are the chapter topics. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Ilan Pappé is Professor at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, Co- Director of the Exeter Centre for Ethnopolitical Studies, and Director of the Exeter Centre for Palestine Studies.