Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
interesting and fun to read, 31 Aug 1999
By A Customer
I picked up this book as a result of a Cultural Anthropology class, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Fernea never claims to be a trained anthropologist at the time she traveled to Iraq, she merely recounts her experiences as they happened. She was traveling with her anthropologist husband. For those who say she was a tourist who suddenly claimed to be an expert, I think they should have read her comments more closely. Perhaps they are among those who skip to chapter 1 without reading the foreward???Let me stress again, Fernea was only recording her experiences as an American woman in a remote Iraqi village. Upon returning to the US she continued to study the region, and went on to teach Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas at Austin. I would hardly say she took a little vacation and immediately claimed to be an expert! Obviously, her life in the village of El Nahra impacted her life greatly. This book was great, and very readable. I would recommend it to anyone curious about women's life in remote Iraqi society.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
unbiased, informative, and entertaining, 29 Mar 1999
By A Customer
I recently read Guests of the Sheik for one of my classes. Not only did I find the book informative, but I was also so enthralled by it that I found myself neglecting other work. Many of the other books that I have read for my class I find to be cluttered with the author's prejudices. When Fernea to Iraq with her husband she was not a social anthropologist, like her husband. She did not have the base of over-analyzation that many "orientalists" write from. Her book is entirely observation without judgement. If you want to read about women's life in a veiled society, this is perfect. You'll be surprised at what you discover about this culture, which is so often portrayed as oppressive and backwards.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
a must read for middle east enthusiasts, 28 Jan 1998
By A Customer
I borrowed this book from a colleague of mine and carried it around for five months, not having time to sit and read it. Oh I wish I had read it five months earlier! It is so well written, capturing the very essence of life in the Middle East. But what really struck me was that much of the culture that was described by Fernea still exists in various shapes and forms. I lived in an oasis village in the United Arab Emirates, and though we knew it was the 90's, the locals held to customs and ideas as if nothing had changed, only the roads now were paved. Extraordinary story from the female perspective. A must read.
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