The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs - Softcover

Pryce-Jones, David

3.9

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9781566634403: The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1566634407 ISBN 13: 9781566634403

Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, 2002

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This important book explains how Arabs are closed in a circle defined by tribal, religious, and cultural traditions. David Pryce-Jones examines the tribal forces which, he believes, drive the Arabs in their dealings with each other and with the West. In the postwar world, he argues, the Arabs reverted to age-old tribal and kinship structures, a closed circle from which they have been unable to escape, and in which violence is systemic. A healthy corrective, a thought-provoking study. --David K. Shipler, New York Times Book Review

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About the Author:

David Pryce-Jones is the author of many works of non-fiction, including The War that Never Was about the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Paris in the Third Reich. He has also written nine novels, of which Inheritance is his most recent. He lives in London.

From Publishers Weekly:

Following the end of colonial rule in the Middle East, the newly independent Arab nations did not become progressive and free: they are despotic; most persecute religious or ethnic minorities; all oppress women; none has participatory institutions. In a scathing and provocative critique, Pryce-Jones ( Paris in the Third Reich ; Cyril Connolly ) blames these dismal conditions on what he sees as a Muslim reversion to tribal and kinship structures as well as slavish obedience to complex codes of honor and shame that prevent concepts such as open debate, democracy and accountability from taking root. With Islamocentric shortsightedness, Arabs understood Nazism in terms of German revenge for humiliation suffered in World War I. Arab leaders admired both Hitler and Lenin as careerist conspirators who made good. Pryce-Jones sees the same tribal, king-of-the-hill mentality at work today in the Palestine Liberation Organization, a careerist group built around a few audacious personalities who arrogated the right to speak for a whole people.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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