In this accessible study, Stephen Humphreys introduces the most elusive of the early caliphs, Mu'awiya ibn abi Sufyan (602-680). Notoriously guarded about his thoughts, motives and emotions, Mu’awiya was universally known as a figure of immense political acumen. Beyond this, opinions are deeply divided. Throughout history, some have accused him of being the first caliph to diverge from Muhammed’s model of ideal Muslim leadership whilst others credit him with uniting an empire in disarray and transforming the Caliphate into a practicable form of government. In light of this, Humphreys critically analyses his sources, and seeks to get as close as possible to a historical account of the great man.
PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION: "Humphreys brings a historian’s deep and dispassionate perspective to the modern Middle East. In Between Memory and Desire, he poses incisive questions, elaborates convincing arguments and does not shy from tackling the prickliest of topics. All this is achieved with an eye for telling detail and a concise style that is rare in academic writing…. Humphreys’s work is in the best tradition of writing on foreign cultures. Objective yet sympathetic, scholarly yet accessible, his book ends up revealing as much about our own society as about those it describes."—Max Rodenbeck, New York Times Book Review "In this sober and highly informative book, Humphreys introduces educated readers to the nuances of Middle Eastern political and social discourse. He goes behind the headlines and offers a sophisticated and yet accessible analysis of Islamic polity for Western readers."—Library Journal "'People know a lot of things that aren't so,' warns Stephen Humphreys, and then he tells us all we should really know about the Middle East—a vast, complex, and frequently misunderstood universe. It is a rare achievement that combines erudition, compelling writing, and personal experience."—Meron Benvenisti, author of City of Stone
This book will be immensely helpful to those who wish to orient themselves to what has become a very large body of literature on medieval Islamic history. Combining a bibliographic study with an inquiry into method, it opens with a survey of the principal reference tools available to historians of Islam and a systematic review of the sources they will confront. Problems of method are then examined in a series of chapters, each exploring a broad topic in the social and political history of the Middle East and North Africa between A.D. 600 and 1500. The topics selected represent a cross-section of Islamic historical studies, and range from the struggles for power within the early Islamic community to the life of the peasantry. Each chapter pursues four questions. What concrete research problems are likely to be most challenging and productive? What resources do we possess for dealing with these problems? What strategies can we devise to exploit our resources most effectively? What is the current state of the scholarly literature for the topic under study?
Theatre of the Rule of Law presents the first sustained critique of global rule of law promotion - an expansive industry at the heart of international development, post-conflict reconstruction and security policy today. While successful in articulating and disseminating an effective global public policy, rule of law promotion has largely failed in its stated objectives of raising countries out of poverty and taming violent conflict. Furthermore, in its execution, this work deviates sharply from 'the rule of law' as commonly conceived. To explain this, Stephen Humphreys draws on the history of the rule of law as a concept, examples of legal export during colonial times, and a spectrum of contemporary interventions by development agencies and international organisations. Rule of law promotion is shown to be a kind of theatre, the staging of a morality tale about the good life, intended for edification and emulation, but blind to its own internal contradictions.
Upon the death of Saladin in 1193, his vast empire, stretching from the Yemen to the upper reaches of the Tigris, fell into the hands of his Ayyubid kinsmen. These latter parceled his domains into a number of autonomous principalities, though some common identity was maintained by linking these petty states into a loose confederation, in which each local prince owed allegiance to the senior member of the Ayyubid house. Such an arrangement was, of course, highly unstable, and at first glance Ayyubid history appears to be no more than a succession of unedifying squabbles among countless rival princelings, until at last the family's hegemony was extinguished by two events: 1) a coup d'état staged by the palace guard in Egypt in 1250, and 2) the Mongol occupation of Syria, brief but destructive, in 1260. But appearances to the contrary, the obscure quarrels of Saladin's heirs embodied a political revolution of highest importance in Syro-Egyptian history. The seven decades of Ayyubid rule mark the slow and sometimes violent emergence of a new administrative relationship between Egypt and Syria, one in which Syria was subjected to close centralized control from Cairo for the unprecedented period of 250 years. These years saw also the gradual decay of a form of government--the family confederation--which had been the most characteristic political structure of Western Iran and the Fertile Crescent for three centuries, and its replacement by a unitary autocracy. Finally, it was under the Ayyubids that the army ceased to be an arm of the state and became, in effect, the state itself. When these internal developments are seen in the broader context of world history as it affected Syria during the first half of the thirteenth century--Italian commercial expansion, the Crusades of Frederick II and St. Louis, the Mongol expansion--then the great intrinsic interest of Ayyubid history becomes apparent. Professor Humphreys has developed these themes through close examination of the political fortunes of the Ayyubid princes of Damascus. For Damascus, though seldom the capital of the Ayyubid confederation, was, nevertheless, its hinge. The struggle for regional autonomy vs. centralization, for Syrian independence vs. Egyptian domination, was fought out at Damascus, and the city was compelled to stand no less than eleven sieges during the sixty-seven years of Ayyubid rule. Almost every political process of real significance either originated with the rulers of Damascus or was closely reflected in their policy and behavior. The book is cast in the form of a narrative, describing a structure of politics which was in no way fixed and static, but dynamic and constantly evolving. Indeed, the book does not so much concern the doings of a group of rather obscure princes as it does the values and attitudes which underlay and shaped their behavior. The point of the narrative is precisely to show what these values were, how they were expressed in real life, and how they changed into quite new values in the course of time.
It's the day before Christmas Eve and Harold and Charlie are very excited. But when Stanley the reindeer arrives to switch on the Christmas lights he has some troubling news about Santa! What has happened to Santa and why can't he fit down the chimneys? Harold has a plan to help but can a platypus and a little bear really deliver presents to every little boy and little girl before Christmas morning?
Kraepelin, who in 1896 first defined the disorder now known as schizophrenia, appreciated that there were many difficulties with the concept, and believed that, since the cause of the disorder was essentially unknown, there could be no rational treatment. This authoritative 1999 text provides a wide-ranging survey of the disorder, including an extensive account of what was known about the underlying biology. The main part of the book covers clinical aspects, including differential and dual diagnosis, and treatment and management problems, particularly in relation to care in the community. Topics covered include brain imaging, genetics, pharmacology and neuropsychology, as well as chapters on health economics and forensic issues. The authors have extensive clinical experience with schizophrenia patients, and this book, which is unusual in its breadth and its concern for social and community issues, will be a valuable reference for all psychiatrists, and other health professionals involved in the management of schizophrenia.
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