Hostage to History: The Cultural Collapse of the 21st Century Arab World - Hardcover

Nasrallah, Elie Mikhael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1460282779 ISBN 13: 9781460282779

Publisher: FriesenPress, 2016

Synopsis

"People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them."
-James Arthur Baldwin

People, like you, all over the world are asking a serious question, demanding a credible answer: what happened to Arab culture and its peoples? Elie Mikhael Nasrallah addresses this subject as a son of that culture and as a critic from within. "What is wrong, really wrong, with the Arab world" he asks. "The theme of this book is: it's the culture, stupid!" Like a social science surgeon, he takes the reader into the dark alleys of contemporary Arab cultural conditions and political collapse. In fact, he shows how the lack of freedom, women's oppression, sexual repression, illiteracy, political tyranny, outdated educational system, the mixing of religion and politics, and the curse of oil have all led to present-day catastrophic upheaval and Arab state-system disintegration, destruction and decay in most Arab lands. He provides readers with a 12-point prescription for salvaging a civilization that has lost its way and needs to re-join modernity and history....

About this title

About the Author:

About the Author:
Elie Mikhael Nasrallah, born in Lebanon, graduated from CarletonUniversity in Ottawa, with an honours degree in political science. Healso obtained a post-graduate certificate in Regulatory LawAdministration from Algonquin College. He has been practicing since 1998 as a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant in the City of Ottawa,Canada. He has published two previous books: "My Arab Spring, MyCanada," co-author in 2012, "None of the Above," He is also a writer and commentator for major newspapers in North America and the Middle East.He has published in the Globe and Mail, The Montreal Gazette, TheToronto Star, The Ottawa Citizen, Huffington Post, The Daily Star inBeirut, Al-Ahram in Egypt, Annahar of Lebanon. He is a public speakerand a media personality in Canada and in the Middle East, appearing
frequently on major media outlets.

Review:

A fantastic read: "The National Post," a review by scholar and author Robert Fulford on June 11, 2016.
Why did it fail so calamitously? Why do so many efforts by Arabs tobetter their society fail? Elie Mikhael Nasrallah thinks he knows why:the culture of the Arabs has developed over hundreds of years in a waythat makes a viable modern society impossible. By "culture" he means the shared system of beliefs and customs that a people pass down fromgeneration to generation. Driven by their culture, the Arab states havedeveloped two contradictory qualities. They are turbulent and they arestagnant.
He expands his answer in a remarkable book, Hostage to History: TheCultural Collapse of the 21st Century Arab World (Friesen Press).Nasrallah is a Lebanon-born Christian Arab who has lived in Canada since he came here with his parents in 1980. He works in Ottawa as animmigration consultant and often writes articles about the Arab world.
He delivers his ideas with a refreshing bluntness, confident that his generalizations and his observations make sense. He knows the Arabsonce were world leaders in science and literature; one millennium ago it appeared they had a far greater future than the Europeans. But todaythey are hobbled by ancient attitudes.

About this edition

• Publisher: FriesenPress
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1460282779
• ISBN 13: 9781460282779
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 186