The Arabs: A History by Middle East scholar Eugene Rogan

So much has been written about the history of the Arab World, most driven by interpretations of emotion,  suffering and partisanship. Many of the books have been narratives reflecting the author's bias or political preferences, making them either easy to read satisfying your needs or difficult to read challenging your beliefs. Eugene Rogan, the director of The Middle east Centre at St. Anthony's College in Oxford, however, provides a clinically accurate and compelling "history" that gives the Arab World in a timely examination and explanation.

The introduction details why knowledge of the history of the Arabs is so important and it is followed by chapters that take you through the major developments and the evolution of today's Arab. How did they get to where they are at? And, are they being marginlized and erased by the growing Islamic revolution which is burying the richness and uniqueness of the secular Arab culture in a cult of religious bastardization? These are only some questions that one might answer in understanding the history of The Arabs in Rogan's book.

We all know the historical chronology, but Rogan takes us through a more interesting read through Ottoman rule, the Muhammad Ali empire, reformation, colonization in African, World War I, the disastrous rule of Britain in the Middle East, France in Lebanon, the disaster in Palestine, the rise of Arab nationalism, and the decline of Arab nationalism, the age of oil and the age of Islam, with a look at the consequences of the aftermath of the Cold War.

The other problem I have with past narratives of Arab history has been the writing. It's so hard to read some of the past historical collections. They are painful to the reader and intended for the scholar. Rogan's book mixes his firsthand experience living in the Middle East, his love for the Arab people and a writing style that encourages the non-scholar to appreciate and enjoy the rich cultural and political history of the Arabs. What the Arab World needs is less interference from the professors and scholars and more understanding among the public at large. The public needs this book more than the dusty shelves of some Middle East studies department or the classroom of affected PhD wannabes.

It's the ease by which one can read this thick scholarly work that makes it so valuable. Knowledge is worthless if it can't be expressed and passed along to the less knowledgeable. Rogan has taken the complexities of the Middle East and the role of its evolution under The Arabs and made it something everyday readers will enjoy. More importantly, they will take something away from this enjoyable reading experience. I've read almost every book on the Middle East and the Arabs over the past 35 years of American Arab activism, but Rogan's "The Arabs" has been the most enjoyable, and that makes it the most educational.

I am not a scholar on the Middle East, just a lifelong student. Reading through Rogan's book has been very informative and enjoyable. I highly recommend it.

More information on "The Arabs":

The Arabs

A History
by Eugene Rogan

Nov 2, 2009
Hardcover
US $35.00
CAN $44.50
ISBN: 9780465071005
ISBN-10: 0465071007
Published by Basic Books

Description

To American observers, the Arab world often seems little more than a distant battleground characterized by religious zealotry and political chaos. Years of tone-deaf US policies have left the region powerless to control its own destiny—playing into a longstanding sense of shame and impotence for a once-mighty people. In this definitive account, preeminent historian Eugene Rogan traces five centuries of Arab history, from the Ottoman conquests through the British and French colonial periods and up to the present age of unipolar American hegemony. The Arab world is now more acutely aware than ever of its own vulnerability, and this sense of subjection carries with it vast geopolitical consequences. Drawing from Arab sources little known to Western readers, Rogan’sThe Arabs will transform our understanding of the past, present, and future of one of the world’s most tumultuous regions.

Eugene Rogan

Eugene Rogan is a faculty fellow and university lecturer in the Modern History of the Middle East at St Antony’s College, Oxford, where he serves as director of the Middle East Centre. His previous book, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire, was judged by the Middle East Studies Association of North America to be the best work on the Middle East in 2000 and awarded the Albert Hourani Prize. He lives in Oxford, England.

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"Running for All the Right Reasons: A Saudi-born Woman's Pursuit of Democracy" a hit

In 2004, Ferial Masry, born in Mecca, became the first Saudi American to run for political office in U.S. history. A recent immigrant and naturalized citizen with a heavy Middle Eastern accent, Masry made a spirited run for the California State Assembly seat in a staunchly Republican district, which sparked worldwide interest. She was ABC’s Person of the Week, was interviewed by Peter Jennings, and made headlines in the New York Times and Associated Press. Against all odds, her grassroots campaign succeeded in winning the write-in vote, a historic victory for all Arab Americans.

Running for All the Right Reasons chronicles Masry’s remarkable life, from her childhood in Mecca and her decision to emigrate to the United States to her career as an educator and her bold entry into the world of politics. Masry’s story, as well as her passionate belief in democracy and commitment to her community, is the stuff of legends.

Ferial Masry is currently running for California State Assembly in the 37th District. She teaches government and history at Cleveland High School in Los Angeles and has served on the boards of the Education Committee for the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations and of the National Women’s Political Caucus, among others.

Susan Chenard is an English professor at Gateway Community College in New Haven, Connecticut, and a freelance writer.

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Review: This is a fascinating book, especially if you are interested in how immigrants merge into the American political system. Ferial Masry's experience is the quitessential American experience. The book is not only a personal insight into Saudi Arabia -- a very misunderstood country that has been a strong ally of the United States -- it is also a compelling tale of the Arab American political experience. Masry is a role model for Arab Americans who, after more than 150 years years in this country, are only now engaging the American political system with widepsread and growing empowerment and engagement.

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New Book "Prophets and Princes" by Mark Weston released

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Prophets and Princes – Saudi Arabia from Muhammad to the Present By Mark Weston
Presents a new, post – 9/11 history of Saudi Arabia

New York, NY – Saudi Arabia is easy to criticize. It is the birthplace of Osama bin Laden and fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. Saudi women are not permitted to drive, work with men, or travel without a man’s permission. Prior to 9/11, the Saudis sent millions of dollars abroad to schools that taught Muslim extremism and to charities that turned out to be fronts for al-Qaeda. Yet the country is the economic and spiritual center of the Middle East, the source of one fourth of the world’s oil, and the cradle of Islam.

In PROPHETS AND PRINCES (Wiley, August 2008, $35.00), Mark Weston, a scholar who has lived in Saudi Arabia, writes that despite its serious shortcomings, the Saudi kingdom is still America’s most important ally in the Middle East. The country is a voice for moderation toward Israel and on the price of oil, and it is starting to make the economic and cultural changes necessary to adjust to modern realities.

Most books on Saudi Arabia focus on current events and give short shrift to the long history that is the key to understanding the Saudis. PROPHETS AND PRINCES begins with the birth of Muhammad in 570, but almost half of the book is a revealing portrait of Saudi Arabia today. Drawing on interviews with many Saudi men and women, Weston portrays a complex society in which sixty percent of Saudi Arabia’s university students are women, and citizens who seek a constitutional monarchy can petition the king without fear of reprisal.

PROPHETS AND PRINCES is loaded with new information about Saudi Arabia, painting a more complete picture of the country than other recent books on the topic do. For example:

· The Saudi government has stopped charities from doing any work abroad since 9/11, fired 1300 radical clerics and forbidden them to preach, and is completing the process of replacing over a million textbooks that had hostile references to Christians and Jews.

· The terror-filled spring of 2004, when Westerners were getting killed every few days, came to an abrupt end in June of that year when the Saudi police raided several terrorist hideouts after receiving tips from “disgusted neighbors.”

· 22 members of the bin Laden family were able to leave the U.S. in the days after 9/11 because the FBI had already thoroughly investigated the entire family, with their full cooperation, after the 1998 African embassy bombings.

· The outrage following the tragic girls’ school fire in Mecca in 2002, when fifteen girls were trampled to death as religious policemen prevented fire fighters from entering the school because the girls were not wearing the full veil, has led to a freer press and the transfer of the administration of the nation’s girls’ schools from religious authorities to the Ministry of Education.

Weston also brings to life the story of Muhammad, his successors, and origin of the Sunni-Shi’ite split in the 7th century; ibn Abdul Wahhab and the rise of Wahhabism in the 18th century; the discovery of oil in the kingdom in the 1930s, and the influence of the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb on al-Qaeda in 20th and 21st centuries.

Mark Weston, a former Visiting Scholar at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, has been a lawyer for ABC Television and a journalist for ABC News. His articles have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. He is the author of Giants of Japan, The Lives of Japan’s Greatest Men and Women and The Land and People of Pakistan.

Filled with new and underreported information about life in Saudi Arabia, PROPHETS AND PRINCES is a must-read for anyone interested in the Middle East, oil, Islam, or terrorism.

"If Olaya Street Could Talk" gives Americans a clear and fascinating perspective on Saudi Arabia

(Listen to podcast interview with author, below). Saudi Arabia is the whipping boy of the American public. Any time something goes wrong, blame it on the Arabs and the symbol of the Arabs remains an old, outdated video clip of King Faisal in old black sunglasses with a keffiyeh on his head and wearing long white gowns surrounded by similarly dressed sheikhs. King Faisal was a very dedicated Arab leader who did his best to bring the Arab World into the modern century without losing the cultural uniqueness of being an Arab. It continues today, but Americans only selfishly think of oil and blame their own troubles on everyone else, and Saudi Arabia often takes the beating.

But a new book is out that is perfect for American readers called "If Olaya Street Could Talk." It's written by an American, John Paul Jones, who launched one of the only real Arab American printing houses to focus on badly needed objective books about the Middle East, Taza Press at http://www.tazapress.com/.

Jones offers firsthand insights into the reality of Saudi Arabia and focuses on the Islamic-Western divide which is often exaggerated to achieve political agendas.

Olaya Street is the principle thoroughfare in Riyadh, which Jones notes is the equivalent to New York ity, a street he first saw in 1978 when he first arrived in the country. Back then, he remembers, it had goats grazing along its easements. But today, 60 story office buildings garnish the main arterial road. The cover photos alone show how the street changed from a desert highway with oil rigs and cranes to a bustling cosmopolitan city that Jones guides the reader through, offering a real, firsthand look at the Saudi people, their customs and their religion, Islam, a religion of peace.

Jones does what most other Islamic scholars and activists fail to do, separate the political agendas and their selfish needs from the reality of life, when the Vietnam Veteran returned home to find a possible opportunity working for a company in the desert kingdom.

What he brings back thirty years later is an objectivity and a truth that no one who has covered Saudi Arabia and the Arab and Muslim Worlds has ever managed to give the American public. An unvarnished, accurate look at the reality of life there without worrying about the political agendas that transform lies into truth and truth into propaganda.

"If Olaya Street Could Talk" is a book Americans definitely should invest what little money they have left from their salaries that isn't spent on gasoline and other products exploited by multi-national corporations and balmed on the Arabs.

http://www.tazapress.com/
Author John Paul Jones
Albuqurque, New Mexico
2007, 236 Pages
$25.95


PODCAST INTERVIEW: POINT TO POINT. August 1, 2008: Ray Hanania interviews Author John Paul Jones on his new book "If Olaya Street Could Talk: Saudi Arabia the Heartland of Oil and Islam" published by Taza Press. A detailed look at the Saudi world through the eyes of a typical American. Listen to podcast?