|
|
|
|
by Israel Gershoni and James Jankowski, Editors
In the past two decades the study of nationalism has moved from the largely static intellectual and political perspectives that have dominated the field for most of this century. Today's discourse on nationalism is engaged by dynamic theoretical models derived from studies in literary criticism, cultural anthropology, socioeconomics, and psychology. Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East is the first book of its kind to apply this new theoretical framework to the Arab Middle East.
The fourteen original essays in this volume explore the psychological, political, and cultural bases of Arab nationalism since World War I and are arranged around broad themes of study: academic constructions of nationalist history, nationalist presentations of Arab histories, conflict among competing nationalist visions, and more.
The essays include Beth Baron on the image of women in Egyptian nationalist iconography; Fred Halliday suggesting an instrumentalist approach to nationalism and applying it to the case of Yemen; Rashid Khalidi on the formative era of Palestinian nationalist identity; and Emmanuel Sivan's analysis of contemporary Islamicist interpretations of Arab nationalism. This innovative collection brings a much-needed multidimensianal approach to the question of nationalism in the Middle East, and will be an invaluable resource for students, teachers and scholars.
"Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East offers a rich menu of new contributions to the subject, many of which are much more theoretically informed than has been the norm for this field. The book is unusually reflective, giving attention to how historians have constructed Arab nationalism, to issues in competing visions of that nationalism, and, almost unprecedently in this sub-field, to subaltern voices."
--Juan Cole, author of Modernity and the Millenium (Columbia)
About the author.
Email this citation