In this stimulating study, Juan R. I. Cole challenges traditional elite-centered conceptions of the conflict that led to the British occupation of Egypt in 1882. For a year before the British intervened, Egypt's government and the country's influential European community had been locked in a struggle with the nationalist supporters of General Ahmad 'Urabi. Although most Western observers still see the 'Urabi movement as a 'revolt' of junior military officers with only limited support among the Egyptian people, Cole maintains that it was a full-scale revolution with a broad social base. While arguing this fresh point of view, he also proposes a theory of revolution against informal or neocolonial empires, drawing parallels between Egypt in 1882, the early twentieth-century Boxer Rebellion in China, and the Islamic Revolution in modern Iran. In a thorough examination of the changing Egyptian political culture from 1858 through the 'Urabi episode, Cole shows how various social strata--urban guilds, the intelligentsia, and village notables--became 'revolutionary.' Addressing issues raised by such scholars as Barrington Moore and Theda Skocpol, his book combines four complementary approaches: social structure and its socioeconomic context, organization, ideology, and the ways in which unexpected conjunctures of events help drive a revolution. "The resulting account of the origins of the 1881-82 revolution is original and persuasive. The book will make a significant contribution to the comparative study of social revolution, in particular by explaining how neocolonial revolutions differ from the kinds of revolution previous theorists have studied." --Timothy P. Mitchell, New York University
President Barack Obama in his second term faces a range of Middle East issues, including Iran, Israel and Palestine, the aftermath of the Arab political upheavals of 2011, and the implications of climate change and green energy for the US relationship with the Gulf oil monarchies. Some of his policies are likely to remain substantially unchanged from his first term, but the addition of Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to his cabinet will cause some shifts. In particular, the administration’s pivot away from the Middle East toward Asia may be slowed or reinterpreted. President Barack Obama has announced his intention of completing his military disengagement from the Middle East by winding down the Afghanistan War and withdrawing most or possibly all US troops from that country by the end of 2014. After the first decade of the 21st century, in which the United States was, for good or ill, a transformative force in Middle Eastern politics, Obama has set a much more cautious and pragmatic course for the second decade. His administration will continue to pressure Iran diplomatically and economically, but key cabinet officers have cast doubt on the utility of striking that country. Washington has signaled that it wants to avoid a military entanglement in Syria. In the first Obama administration, it announced a policy of pivoting toward Asia, and put many of its diplomatic efforts into Pacific Rim relationships. Even if this policy is moderated in the second term, Asia will certainly bulk large. Because Obama envisages a transition to an electricity and transportation grid fueled by domestic oil, wind and solar energy, he does not seem to believe that Middle-East petroleum has long-term significance for US security, and this calculation may make him less concerned about the Iranian challenge. On the other hand, he is unlikely to relinquish the US strategic position in the Gulf, which will likely remain important to the economy of America and its allies for two or three decades, even if that importance gradually declines. While the Obama team’s preference for a “rebalancing” toward Asia might be modified by Kerry’s hope that he can maintain good relations with China, it seems far more likely that the important foreign policy breakthroughs in Obama’s second term will come along the Pacific Rim than in a troubled Middle East.
A ... history that brings to life the fascinating and complex world of the Prophet, Muhammad is the story of how peace is the rule and not the exception for one of the world's most practiced religions."--Jacket.
In this stimulating study, Juan R. I. Cole challenges traditional elite-centered conceptions of the conflict that led to the British occupation of Egypt in 1882. For a year before the British intervened, Egypt's government and the country's influential European community had been locked in a struggle with the nationalist supporters of General Ahmad 'Urabi. Although most Western observers still see the 'Urabi movement as a 'revolt' of junior military officers with only limited support among the Egyptian people, Cole maintains that it was a full-scale revolution with a broad social base. While arguing this fresh point of view, he also proposes a theory of revolution against informal or neocolonial empires, drawing parallels between Egypt in 1882, the early twentieth-century Boxer Rebellion in China, and the Islamic Revolution in modern Iran. In a thorough examination of the changing Egyptian political culture from 1858 through the 'Urabi episode, Cole shows how various social strata--urban guilds, the intelligentsia, and village notables--became 'revolutionary.' Addressing issues raised by such scholars as Barrington Moore and Theda Skocpol, his book combines four complementary approaches: social structure and its socioeconomic context, organization, ideology, and the ways in which unexpected conjunctures of events help drive a revolution. "The resulting account of the origins of the 1881-82 revolution is original and persuasive. The book will make a significant contribution to the comparative study of social revolution, in particular by explaining how neocolonial revolutions differ from the kinds of revolution previous theorists have studied." --Timothy P. Mitchell, New York University
Annotation. Iraqi Shiism is undergoing profound changes, leading to new elaborations of the relationship between clerics and democratic principles in an Islamic state. The Najaf tradition of thinking about Shiite Islam and the modern state in Iraq, which first developed during the Iranian constitutional revolution of 1905-1911, rejects the principle that supreme power in an Islamic state must be in clerical hands. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Iraq stands in this tradition, and he has striven to uphold and develop it since the fall of Saddam Hussein. At key points he came into conflict with the Bush administration, which was not eager for direct democracy. Parliamentary politics have also drawn in clerics of the Dawa Party, the Sadr movement, and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, all of which had earlier been authoritarian in outlook. Is Iraqi Shiism experiencing its enlightenment moment? This title can be previewed in Google Books - http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN9789053568897.
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