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Review
'Mr Halliday offers an authoritative analysis of the armed conflict, social upheaval and political economics that formed the background to the attack on America in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq nearly two years later.' The Economist
'A most worthwhile study that should become compulsory reading for all students of the Middle East.' Contemporary Review
'The Middle East in International Relations may well be regarded as his chef d'oeuvre, bringing together as it does not only the borad range of his earlier writings on the area but also a formidable array of other contributions.' Asian Affairs
'Firstly, Halliday arouses curiosity when he compares political theories to mushrooms: Some are eatable, some enjoyable and a third category is simply poisonous …Halliday explains particularly convincingly the reasons for the fast and thorough adoption of the exogenous ideology of nationalism in the Arabic region. … The real value of the chapter lies in the question that Halliday poses about which movements/phenomena/factors are international (inter-state) and which are truly trans-national. He answers this question in an extraordinarily conclusive way using the five case studies of nationalist movements, … a well thought through appendix of maps, charts, diagrams, and statistic information … The exquisitely comprehensive selection of sources by itself would justify the 'subsequent use'. This publication, therefore, belongs in every serious Near East library' Henner Fuertig
Review
'Mr Halliday offers an authoritative analysis of the armed conflict, social upheaval and political economics that formed the background to the attack on America in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq nearly two years later.' The Economist
'A most worthwhile study that should become compulsory reading for all students of the Middle East.' Contemporary Review
'The Middle East in International Relations may well be regarded as his chef d'oeuvre, bringing together as it does not only the borad range of his earlier writings on the area but also a formidable array of other contributions.' Asian Affairs
'Firstly, Halliday arouses curiosity when he compares political theories to mushrooms: Some are eatable, some enjoyable and a third category is simply poisonous …Halliday explains particularly convincingly the reasons for the fast and thorough adoption of the exogenous ideology of nationalism in the Arabic region. … The real value of the chapter lies in the question that Halliday poses about which movements/phenomena/factors are international (inter-state) and which are truly trans-national. He answers this question in an extraordinarily conclusive way using the five case studies of nationalist movements, … a well thought through appendix of maps, charts, diagrams, and statistic information … The exquisitely comprehensive selection of sources by itself would justify the 'subsequent use'. This publication, therefore, belongs in every serious Near East library' Henner Fuertig --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
Coming within a few months of Robert Fisk's eagerly awaited book on The Great War for Civilisation and accompanied by a companion volume on 100 Myths about the Middle East, this book provides a framework for examining the problem in all its dimensions.
The book is logically structured to cover the history of the region and the varied and often contradictory dimensions that the region can be studied in. It starts by proposing that a study of the languages of the area is a necessary but not sufficient condition for understanding of the region. It goes on to analyse the ideological, political, economic, sociological and military aspects of the problem along with the legacy of colonialism and the proxy conflicts of the cold war period.
Over and over again the reader is struck by the sheer erudition of the author where, in a couple of well chosen finely honed words, he lets us know that he has read about assessed and understood some economic, sociological or political theory that might have relevance and applied it to his analysis. The range of these illustrates the breadth of the subject. The personal insights ranging from the coincidence of his finishing his undergraduate examinations in 1967 on the day of the classic strike from the sea to his confession of the identity of his hero add a leavening humanity to the intricacies of the region.
Surprisingly, the author does not expect water to be a major cause of conflict in the area.
His footnotes add to the wonderful feeling of confidence that the author, unsurprisingly, knows what he is talking about. Anecdotes about spending a night on a hillside in Dhofar with a bodyguard of insurgents while the SAS were raiding across the frontier or a reference to a book on the subject of Arab Political Humour add enormous credibility to the content.
The book condenses forty years of knowledge, study, hard won experience and astonishing amounts of reading into three hundred readable and understandable pages that lead the reader to go around and start again to assimilate more on the second reading. For those interested in educating themselves about the subject the bibliography is a cornucopia.
To quote from the final paragraph of the book:
"To face the forthcoming struggles, one must be armed. One must learn to distance oneself from the myths, to assimilate the lessons of human experience, to reject complacency and self-satisfaction, which are causes of stagnation; one must always seek to surpass oneself and the existing situation in the effort to accomplish the great human tasks."
Professor Halliday's book provides a means to achieve this admirable end for anyone with more than a cursory interest in the subject.
The book was separated into different chapters to make the reader find what he is searching for easily. Mr.Halliday's smooth explanation and simple construction makes you feel more willing to read the book.
Just like the previous review, I also wonder why he has not mentioned about water which is the essential part of the Middle East. I also found some parts quite repetitive.
Once past these obstacles, the reader will benefit from the insight of someone who obviously has both extensive personal experience in the region and broad knowledge of the language, culture, and history of the Middle East, without any of the idealogical crap that passes for discourse in the US popular press. Prof. Halliday's basic points are: 1] the Middle East as we see it was mostly the product of the years 1918-1924 or so, when the political geography of the region was formed from the remnants of the Ottoman empire. Claims of ancient provenance for many disputes and attitudes are in the author's wonderful term 'ahistorical', that is, based on a highly selective view of the past hardly reflecting any reality. 2] the basic dynamic of the Middle East is the actions of the governments of states, and their opponents, competing for political power (and ruining the economies of the region in the process).
The reader who struggles through this book will be rewarded with the basis for a proper understanding of the region, devoid of both uber-terrorist paranoia and illusions about the role of the West in the region.
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