Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a Troubled Age - Softcover

Humphreys, R. Stephen Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520246918 ISBN 13: 9780520246911

Publisher: University of California Press, 2005

Synopsis

Middle Easterners today struggle to find solutions to crises of economic stagnation, political gridlock, and cultural identity. In recent decades Islam has become central to this struggle, and almost every issue involves fierce, sometimes violent debates over the role of religion in public life. In this post-9/11 updated edition R. Stephen Humphreys presents a thoughtful analysis of Islam's place in today's Middle East and integrates the medieval and modern history of the region to show how the sacred and secular are tightly interwoven in its political and intellectual life.

About this title

Review:

R. Steven Humphreys reveals the rich complexity of the Middle East--a region that stretches from Egypt to Afghanistan--in Between Memory and Desire, a set of ten "interlocking essays" that take on everything from economic growth and nationalist movements to Islamic human rights philosophy. Humphreys has a very clear and concise writing style that makes easily comprehensible an enormous amount of historical and cultural data with which most Western readers will be largely unfamiliar. He demolishes many of the mythic images that Americans have built up around the region and its people, like the "madman" dictator: "When we look beyond the façade of theater and posturing," Humphreys writes, "we will almost always discern a hard-headed politician who knows perfectly well how to set his goals and to craft strategies for achieving them.... The problem for us is not that the goals of Middle Eastern leaders are impenetrable; most of the time they are quite transparent. The problem is simply that these goals are not the ones that we want them to have."

The latter half of the book contains several excellent chapters on Islam--particularly on the concept of jihad and on the role of women in Islamic culture--that reveal the religion's diversity. It is a cliché, of course, to say that after reading a certain book you will never be able to think of its subject in quite the same way again, but it is also the truth concerning Between Memory and Desire and the Middle East. This book is strongly recommended to anybody who wants to know more about the region and its history than can be fit into a 30-second sound bite on the evening news.

From the Inside Flap:

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

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0520246918
• ISBN 13: 9780520246911
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 334