|
|
|
 |
The Arab Mind
by Raphael Patai
Average Customer Rating 
Publisher: Hatherleigh Press
Pub. Date: August 2007
ISBN-13: 9781578262458
|
Nonfiction. The classic study of Arab culture and society is now more relevant than ever. Since its original publication in 1983, the revised edition of Raphael Patai's The Arab Mind has been recognized as one of the seminal works in the field of Middle Eastern studies. This penetrating analysis unlocks the mysteries of Arab society to help us better understand a complex, proud and ancient culture. The Arab Mind discusses the upbringing of a typical Arab boy or girl, the intense concern with honor and courage, the Arabs' tendency toward extremes of behavior, and their ambivalent attitudes toward the West. Chapters are devoted to the influence of Islam, sexual mores, Arab language and Arab art, Bedouin values, Arab nationalism, and the pervasive influence of Westernization. |
| |
Inside the Arab World
by Michael Field
Average Customer Rating 
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Pub. Date: March 1996
ISBN-13: 9780674455214 |
| Nonfiction. Precious oil and export markets, wars in Lebanon and the Persian Gulf, peace talks at the White House, terrorist eruptions: more now than ever, Arab affairs are the West's affair. And yet as we find ourselves increasingly enmeshed in its politics and economics, the Middle East remains a mystery to most of us, a world of dimly understood connections and impenetrable complexities. The Arab world at last becomes accessible in this book. Inside the Arab World gives us a complete and detailed picture of the region as it is today, as well as a clear sense of how Arab affairs have evolved and where they may lead |
| |
The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs
by David Pryce-Jones
Average Customer Rating 
Publisher: Dee, Ivan R. Publisher
Pub. Date: January 2002
ISBN-13: 9781566634403 |
| Nonfiction. As the violence of the Middle East has come to America, many Westerners are stunned and confounded by this new form of mayhem that appears to be a feature of Arab societies. This important book explains how Arabs are closed in a circle defined by tribal, religious, and cultural traditions. |
| |
Understanding Arabs: A Guide for Modern Times
by Margaret Nydell
Average Customer Rating
Publisher: Intercultural Press
Pub. Date: September 2005 (4th edition)
ISBN-13: 9781931930253 |
| Nonfiction. Understanding Arabs: A Guide for Modern Times is a handbook, intended to be read easily and quickly, by people who are not specialists. Written by highly esteemed Arabist and academic Margaret Nydell, Understanding Arabs will bring about understanding about modern-day Arabs for foreigners—especially Westerners in America and Europe—without pushing a political agenda. |
| |
From Beirut to Jerusalem
by Thomas Freidman
Average Customer Rating
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Pub. Date: July 1990
ISBN-13: 9780385413725
|
| Nonfiction. Winner of the 1989 National Book Award for nonfiction, this extraordinary and updated bestseller is still the most incisive, thought-provoking book ever written about the Middle East. Thomas L. Friedman, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, and now the Foreign Affairs columnist on the op-ed page of the New York Times, drew on his ten years in the Middle East to write a book that The Wall Street Journal called "a sparkling intellectual guidebook... an engrossing journey not to be missed." Now with a new chapter that brings the ever-changing history of the conflict in the Middle East up to date, this seminal historical work reaffirms both its timeliness and its timelessness. |
| |
Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia, Vol. 1
by Jean Sasson
Average Customer Rating
Publisher: Windsor-Brooke Books
Pub. Date: March 2001
ISBN-13: 978096767374 |
| Nonfiction. Sultana is a Saudi Arabian princess, a woman born to fabulous, uncountable wealth. She has four mansions on three continents, her own private jet, glittering jewels, designer dresses galore. But in reality she lives in a gilded cage. She has no freedom, no vote, no control over her own life, no value but as a bearer of sons. Hidden behind her black floor-length veil, she is a prisoner, jailed by her father, her husband, her sons, and her country. Sultana is a member of the Saudi royal family, closely related to the king. For the sake of her daughters, she has decided to take the risk of speaking out about the life of women in her country, regardless of their rank. She must hide her identity for fear that the religious leaders in her country would call for her death to punish her honesty. |
| |
Mayada, Daughter of Iraq
by Jean Sasson
Average Customer Rating
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Pub. Date: October 2003
ISBN-13: 9781413247329 |
| Nonfiction. Jean Sasson met Mayada Al-Askari on a trip to Baghdad in 1998. One year later, Jean learned that Mayada had been taken without the knowledge of her family from the tiny print shop that she owned, and imprisoned in the notorious Baladiyat Prison-headquarters of Saddam Hussein's infamous secret police. Mayada's story both past and present is truly incredible. Her family was one of the most distinguished and honored families in Iraq. Mayada's life was at once privileged, yet carefully balanced. But life can shift quickly in Iraq and Mayada finds herself thrown into a small cell with seventeen other women: the shadow women. The women rally around each other to share their unbelievable stories, and in so doing gain the strength to survive. The names of the shadow women are scrawled in charcoal onto the cell wall in the hopes that one day one of them will make it out to tell others of their existence. This is Mayada's courageous story, but also that of her sisters. |
| |
People of Nowhere: The Palestinian Vision of Home
by Danny Rubinstein
Average Customer Rating 
Publisher: Random House, Incorporated
Pub. Date: December 1991
ISBN-13: 9780812919400 |
| |
| Nonfiction. Palestinians in refugee camps "live on a combination of nostalgia for the past and illusions about the future," writes Israeli journalist Rubinstein. Most Arabs who fled or were expelled from the newly created State of Israel in 1948 regarded their absence as a temporary affair. Even today the refugees' absolute "right of return"--which implies the destruction of Israel--underlines all PLO decisions and statements. This expectation, according to Rubinstein, is fueled by "a genuine sense of displacement" rather than by an Arab myth of loss of homeland cultivated to serve political ends, as some Israeli spokespeople maintain. This short, sensitive exploration of the Palestinian refugees' conceptual world draws liberally on novels, stories, poetry, plays, memoirs and historical studies. Arguing that each side's perception of the other is rooted in prejudice and suspicion, Rubinstein's analysis speaks to moderates on both sides. (Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.) |
| |
The Saudi’s: Inside the Desert Kingdom
by Sandra Mackey
Average Customer Rating
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Pub. Date: October 2002
ISBN-13: 9780393324174 |
| Nonfiction. "Sandra Mackey lived in Saudi Arabia for four years, ostensibly - as far as the authorities knew - as the wife of an American doctor. But she saw things and traveled to places rarely seen by an outsider (let alone a Western woman), and writing under the aliases Michael Collins and Justin Coe she successfully smuggled out a series of crucial articles on Saudi culture and politics." The Saudis offers a panorama of Saudi life, chronicling Mackey's extraordinary travels and experiences, and depicting Saudi Arabia's strange metamorphosis from a backward desert kingdom into a world power. In this skillful and thorough examination, Mackey reveals the schizophrenic nature of a country in transformation: grappling with modernity, coming to terms with its own wealth, and battling to maintain a position of influence in a new world. The Saudis provides essential background to the Saudi crisis as the country finds itself the mother state of international terrorism. |
| |
|
 |
| |
|
|
