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annelaria's review against another edition
5.0
A must read for anyone! It took me a while to read through it and my copy looks a bit battered from commuting with me, but well worth it. If you want to know more about the world of Arabs and muslims from the Ottoman times until the Arab Springs, this is the book for you.
matteo_of_eld's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
talonx's review against another edition
4.0
This is a very readable narrative of Arab political history from the Ottoman conquest of the 16th century to the first couple of decades of the 21st century.
The Arabian peninsula has seen invasion and occupation from the Ottomans days. Post the decline of the Ottoman empire, the European powers divided it among themselves - with often disastrous and far-reaching consequences. As somebody who grew up in the Indian education system, the British occupation and rule were common knowledge for me, but not what the British, French or Italy did in other colonies.
Almost all the Arab states of the Arabian peninsula and North Africa were under colonial occupation after the first world war. The colonial powers treated them like their playground, like pieces of a pie - to be divided and eaten, all the while trying to keep each other happy at the expense of entire groups of people.
The fruits of modern education and technology that inevitably arrived in the Arab states, notably Egypt, came at a price. Often this price was a loss of sovereignty, horrible repression of the populace, and policies that divide the region to this day. The repression was extremely severe in French Algeria.
The entire chapter on Palestine reads like a chronicle of horrors that continues to this day.
The Cold War era was a repeat of the earlier phase of history - where the Arab states and Afghanistan became grounds for proxy wars. Post the Cold War era, in a unipolar world where the US was the ruling superpower, the same story was repeated but this time with nobody to veto the US either in the UN or in its own legislature when it tried to push policies that resulted in mass human suffering in the Arab countries.
The book does not elaborate on social and cultural aspects, preferring to stick to political developments.
One common thread - often touted as the reason behind a lot of the ills that plague the region today - is a lack of pan-Arabian unity among the Arab countries when it came to solving common problems.
The author is accused of being biased towards the Arabs, and it shows in the book in a number of places. Any reader needs to read other perspectives too to understand what might have been downplayed. Overall, the book is very well-written.
If I had to take away some key points from this book, they would be that it's the common people that suffer during times of war, and that hypocrisy is rife in international relations.
The Arabian peninsula has seen invasion and occupation from the Ottomans days. Post the decline of the Ottoman empire, the European powers divided it among themselves - with often disastrous and far-reaching consequences. As somebody who grew up in the Indian education system, the British occupation and rule were common knowledge for me, but not what the British, French or Italy did in other colonies.
Almost all the Arab states of the Arabian peninsula and North Africa were under colonial occupation after the first world war. The colonial powers treated them like their playground, like pieces of a pie - to be divided and eaten, all the while trying to keep each other happy at the expense of entire groups of people.
The fruits of modern education and technology that inevitably arrived in the Arab states, notably Egypt, came at a price. Often this price was a loss of sovereignty, horrible repression of the populace, and policies that divide the region to this day. The repression was extremely severe in French Algeria.
The entire chapter on Palestine reads like a chronicle of horrors that continues to this day.
The Cold War era was a repeat of the earlier phase of history - where the Arab states and Afghanistan became grounds for proxy wars. Post the Cold War era, in a unipolar world where the US was the ruling superpower, the same story was repeated but this time with nobody to veto the US either in the UN or in its own legislature when it tried to push policies that resulted in mass human suffering in the Arab countries.
The book does not elaborate on social and cultural aspects, preferring to stick to political developments.
One common thread - often touted as the reason behind a lot of the ills that plague the region today - is a lack of pan-Arabian unity among the Arab countries when it came to solving common problems.
The author is accused of being biased towards the Arabs, and it shows in the book in a number of places. Any reader needs to read other perspectives too to understand what might have been downplayed. Overall, the book is very well-written.
If I had to take away some key points from this book, they would be that it's the common people that suffer during times of war, and that hypocrisy is rife in international relations.
wdudley89's review against another edition
4.0
This book taught me a great deal about Arab history, spanning the 16th century Ottoman conquests to the present, and stretching from Morocco to Iraq. The daunting scope and the workmanlike prose made it a long read, but one that was well worthwhile. By the end I could see the roots of many aspects of the contemporary situation in the complicated histories of these peoples and places. I do not have firmly held opinions or allegiances on Middle Eastern issues, but the author strikes me as biased against Israel and the United States, in ways that become increasingly distracting as the book moves into the 20th and 21st centuries.
steke03's review against another edition
5.0
Great read for anyone interested in knowing more about the Arab world. Based entirely on Arab sources this is more than just the standard re-imagining of Arab history through a western lens.
blackshirt's review against another edition
3.0
An extensive history of the Arab people starting under Turkish rule and reaching to the election of Barack Obama - it's also quite depressing. I thoroughly appreciated its scope. It can be a bit dry because it lacks a lot of personal narrative. Rogan signs off with a vaguely hopeful message, but it's hard to fault him after this depressing catalog of cyclical subjugation, manipulation, and atrocity in Arab lands. It's difficult to find figures with moral authority to move forward and beyond past grievances - except the Norwegians.
Clear villains do appear though: perpetrators of violence and enablers of violence, characters seeking power and maintaining power, people unwilling to bring themselves to compromise and mired so heavily in violent pasts.
Clear villains do appear though: perpetrators of violence and enablers of violence, characters seeking power and maintaining power, people unwilling to bring themselves to compromise and mired so heavily in violent pasts.
talenyn's review against another edition
1.0
There is plenty of good information in this book, if you can find it. The first third, about relations between Arab peoples and the Ottoman Empire, is fairly straightforward. But then the author starts to follow about a dozen different polities and political groups therein; he also jumps around chronologically. This book would have been significantly clearer if he followed one polity and digressed as needed for context; or gave an overview of what was happening across the Arab polities during each decade; or even just divided his chapters (in the current order) to address one place / time each and clearly labeled them! As is, this book isn't terribly good as either a reference or a narrative text.