Tamerlane | Comments (2)
Filed Under:
Iran
,
Islam
,
Political Islam
Interesting examination of Khomeini's very populist and usually pragmatic style of politics. Khomeini in this analysis comes off as a surprisngly flexible thinker, more than willing to alter his theology in practice (if not always openly in theory) to work the crowds. Well worth reading as a counter to the...[
More]
raf* | Comments (3)
Filed Under:
Islam
,
Political Islam
,
Society & Culture
Very well done almost pamphlet-sized volume that very concisely describes the rise of Islamism in MENA in general, the trajectory of Islamist movements in the countries listed, and their interplay with notions of electoral politics and movement towards representative democracy in the same. Ultimately she makes a compelling (if not...[
More]
Matthew Hogan | Comments (1)
Filed Under:
Islam
,
North Africa
,
Political Islam
,
Society & Culture
Well over a year after the book's first release, one paragraph alone validates the continuing worth of Yaroslav Trofimov's Faith At War. Although buried in chapter 12, among seemingly more telling fare, had a few planners in high positions in several countries took it seriously last year, a lot of...[
More]
eerie | Comments (7)
Filed Under:
Economics
,
Egypt
Hernando de Soto's brilliant (and surprisingly elegant) theories on extralegal property systems, dead capital and rentier/vampire states can easily be applied to any number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa. In fact, Aqoul once elaborated on his Egypt case study by examining Cairo's collapsing building problem in...[
More]
eerie | Comments (1)
Filed Under:
Iraq
Imperial Life in the Emerald City is a detailed account of life in the Green Zone after the Iraq invasion. As one might expect from title alone, much of the book is spent describing poor decisionmaking by hilariously incompetent political appointees. However, author Rajiv Chandrasekaran acknowledges that the CPA wasn't...[
More]
Latest
dubaiwalla - January 17, 2008 03:27 PM | Comments (6)
Filed Under:
Iraq
Our readers are doubtless already familiar with the allegation that the Bush Administration made an epic mess of Iraq. But what exactly did they do wrong? Rajiv Chandrasekaran explores this in his account of the year and a bit immediately after the invasion, when the country was officially occupied.
Continue Reading
eerie - November 9, 2007 08:46 AM | Comments (47)
Filed Under:
Society & Culture
 |
Infidel
Author(s): Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Format: Book
|
Well, here it is. After much haranguing by Matthew and Lounsbury, everyone finally gets to hear what I think about Ayaan Hirsi Ali's memoir, Infidel. When I started the book this past summer, I forced myself to read it with an open mind (as opposed to the snarky cynicism I've applied in the past). However, this mindset was soon abandoned once it became clear that it was simply an elaborate attempt to win sympathy and establish a personal brand. For non-critical readers, such as the dimwit at NYT who called her book "brave, inspiring and beautifully written," Hirsi Ali emerges as an embattled, courageous soul who escaped the benighted world of Islam and found sanctuary in the enlightened West.
The truth is of course more mundane.
Continue Reading
Matthew Hogan - September 30, 2007 12:47 AM | Comments (11)
Filed Under:
Film
,
Islam
,
Levant
,
MENA History
,
Society & Culture
The bottom line, up front: Jack Shaheen's Reel Bad Arabs is a necessary resource for anyone seriously interested in the subject of negative stereotyping of Arabs in American cinema. The best supplement to this book, by the way, besides its recently released DVD companion piece, is the same author's The...[
More]
eerie - August 20, 2007 11:57 AM | Comments (1)
Filed Under:
Fiction
This book was sold everywhere in Istanbul, but paying €30 for a paperback seemed ridiculous, so I bought it here. The plot isn't terribly intricate and the characters are only briefly sketched, but the story is decent. It also serves as a basic introduction to the Ottoman collapse and subsequent...[
More]
eerie - July 9, 2007 04:43 PM | Comments (5)
Filed Under:
Economics
This book is a good layperson introduction to the concept of microcredit and its Nobel Prize-winning champion, Muhammad Yunus. Unfortunately for me, it didn't get into the nuts and bolts of the Grameen microcredit model and why it produces inconsistent results when applied to different regions. However, that level of...[
More]
RSS
