Perilous Power:The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy: Dialogues on Terror, Democracy, War, and Justice

History

Achcar, Gilbert

CHOMSKY, Noam.

Asia

Penguin

Shipped from UK, please allow 10 to 21 business days for arrival. Very Good, A very good, near fine copy in red/black half-cloth, gilt title on spine with a very good dust jacket.

Hamish Hamilton

There is no more inflammatory topic than the Arabs and the Holocaust―the phrase alone can occasion outrage. Political scientist Gilbert Achcar analyzes the various Arab responses to Nazism, from the earliest intimations of the genocide, through the creation of Israel and the destruction of Palestine and up to our own time, critically assessing the political and historical context for these responses and offering by the same token a unique ideological mapping of the Arab world. While challenging distortions of the historical record, Achcar makes no concessions to anti-Semitism or Holocaust denial. This pathbreaking, essential book provides a new basis for Arab-Israeli and Arab-Western understanding.

The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Picador

“The people want . . .”: This first half of slogans chanted by millions of Arab protesters since 2011 revealed a long-repressed craving for democracy. But huge social and economic problems were also laid bare by the protestors’ demands. Simplistic interpretations of the uprising that has been shaking the Arab world since a young street vendor set himself on fire in Central Tunisia, on 17 December 2010, seek to portray it as purely political, or explain it by culture, age, religion, if not conspiracy theories. Instead, Gilbert Achcar locates the deep roots of the upheaval in the specific economic features that hamper the region’s development and lead to dramatic social consequences, including massive youth unemployment. Intertwined with despotism, nepotism, and corruption, these features, produced an explosive situation that was aggravated by post-9/11 U.S. policies. The sponsoring of the Muslim Brotherhood by the Emirate of Qatar and its influential satellite channel, Al Jazeera, contributed to shaping the prelude to the uprising. But the explosion’s deep roots, asserts Achcar, mean that what happened until now is but the beginning of a revolutionary process likely to extend for many more years to come.The author identifies the actors and dynamics of the revolutionary process: the role of various social and political movements, the emergence of young actors making intensive use of new information and communication technologies, and the nature of power elites and existing state apparatuses that determine different conditions for regime overthrow in each case. Drawing a balance-sheet of the uprising in the countries that have been most affected by it until now, i.e. Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria, Achcar sheds special light on the nature and role of the movements that use Islam as a political banner. He scrutinizes attempts at co-opting the uprising by these movements and by the oil monarchies that sponsor them, as well as by the protector of these same monarchies: the U.S. government. Underlining the limitations of the “Islamic Tsunami” that some have used as a pretext to denigrate the whole uprising, Gilbert Achcar points to the requirements for a lasting solution to the social crisis and the contours of a progressive political alternative.

The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising

Business & Money

Economics

University of California Press

This volume brings together Gilbert Achcar’s major writings on these issues over the past decades. The essays collected in Eastern Cauldron describe and explain the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism, the fate of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and its aftermath, and above all the Palestinian conflict—in which the regional stakes are so dramatically embodied and contested.Achcar analyzes the social bases, strategies and tactics of PLO, Hizbollah, Israel and the United States from the establishment of the state of Israel to the second Intifada. He pinpoints the contradictions of the Israeli state—seeking at the same time to be Jewish and yet democratic—and the impact of these contradictions on all parties to the conflict.Eastern Cauldron is primarily aimed at producing a better understanding of the conflicts of the region. Achcar’s work is informed by strong moral and political commitments but is never limited to polemic.

Eastern Cauldron: Islam, Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq in a Marxist Mirror

Pluto Press

This volume brings together Gilbert Achcar’s major writings on these issues over the past decades. The essays collected in Eastern Cauldron describe and explain the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism, the fate of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and its aftermath, and above all the Palestinian conflict—in which the regional stakes are so dramatically embodied and contested. Achcar analyzes the social bases, strategies and tactics of PLO, Hizbollah, Israel and the United States from the establishment of the state of Israel to the second Intifada. He pinpoints the contradictions of the Israeli state—seeking at the same time to be Jewish and yet democratic—and the impact of these contradictions on all parties to the conflict. Eastern Cauldron is primarily aimed at producing a better understanding of the conflicts of the region. Achcar’s work is informed by strong moral and political commitments but is never limited to polemic.

Review\n‘A detailed and searching account of the Arab Spring’- Malise Ruthven, New York Review of Books 
‘The most careful, insightful, and erudite study to date of the Arab uprising.’-Kevin Anderson (University of California, Santa Barbara), Marx and Philosophy Review of Books\n‘Achcar’s precise and illuminating analyses contrast with the usual discourses on the Arab Spring.’-Henry Laurens (Collège de France), L’Orient Littéraire 
‘A thoughtful and acute analysis … Jargon-free, clear, and a model of marrying theory to empirical material.’- Laleh Khalili (Queen Mary, University of London), Middle East in London 
‘[This book] extends an invitation to the reader to leave a hall of mirrors that often guides explanations of the uprisings … historical events and conceptual constructs start to take a completely different shape.’ - Maha Abdelrahman (University of Cambridge), Jadaliyya\nAchcar argues that the Arab Spring was but the beginning of a long-term revolutionary process – a perspective confirmed by a second wave of uprisings in 2019 – and outlines the requirements for a solution to the crisis; this new edition features a preface drawing a balance sheet of the upheaval’s first decade. 
‘The people want’ – thus began the slogans chanted by millions of protesters in 2011 in what was dubbed the ‘Arab Spring’.  While the protests revealed a long-suppressed craving for democracy, they also laid bare a deep structural crisis. 
In this landmark work, Middle East analyst Gilbert Achcar examines the socio-economic roots and political dynamics of the regional upheaval. He assesses the peculiarities of the region’s states and regimes, and sheds light on the movements that use Islam as a political banner.

Saqi Books

Arabs and the Holocaust

Middle East

Al Saqi

Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy (Chomsky from Routledge)

Shalom, Stephen R.

Reference

Routledge

Perilous Power (Chomsky from Routledge)

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