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In The Struggle for Development and Democracy Alessandro Olsaretti proposes a general theory of development and democracy that is alternative to neoliberal theories, emphasizing that development needs markets, and also civil society and the state.
Bringing the rich terrain of Arab American histories to bear on conceptualizations of race in the United States, this groundbreaking volume fills a critical gap in the field of U.S. racial and ethnic studies. The articles collected here highlight emergent discourses on the distinct ways that race matters to the study of Arab American histories and experiences and asks essential questions. What is the relationship between U.S. imperialism in Arab homelands and anti-Arab racism in the United States? In what ways have the axes of nation, religion, class, and gender intersected with Arab American racial formations? What is the significance of whiteness studies to Arab American studies? Transcending multiculturalist discourses that have simply added on the category “Arab-American” to the landscape of U.S. racial and ethnic studies after the attacks of September 11, 2001, this volume locates September 11 as a turning point, rather than as a beginning, in Arab Americans’
In The Struggle for Development and Democracy Alessandro Olsaretti argues that we need significantly new theories of development and democracy to answer the problem posed by neoliberalism and the populist backlash, namely, uneven development and divisive politics heightened by the 9/11 attacks. This volume proposes a general theory of development and democracy, as part of a unified theory of power, emphasizing that development needs markets, civil society, and the state, and also the proper networks and interactions amongst markets, civil society, and the state. Imperialism undermines these interactions, and turns countries into providers of cheap land or labour. This book begins to sketch the mechanisms at work, and to answer one question: how did imperialist elites build their power? All royalties from sales of this volume will go to GiveWell.org in honour of Alessandro Olsaretti's memory.
In The Struggle for Development and Democracy Alessandro Olsaretti proposes a humanist social science as a first step to overcome the flaws of neoliberalism, and to recover a balanced approach that is needed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
In Architecture, Power and Religion in Lebanon, Ward Vloeberghs explores Rafiq Hariri’s patronage and his posthumous legacy to demonstrate how religious architecture becomes a site for power struggles in contemporary Beirut. By tracing the 150 year-long history of the Muhammad al-Amin Mosque – Lebanon’s principal Sunni mosque – and the subsequent development of the site as a commemoration venue, this account offers a unique illustration of how architecture, religion and power become discursively and visually entangled. Set in a multi-confessional society marked by social inequalities and political fragmentation, this interdisciplinary study analyses how architectural practice and urban reconfigurations reveal a nascent personality cult, communal mourning, and the consolidation of political territory in relation to constantly shifting circumstances.
Prologue : Shiʻism, sectarianism, modernity -- The incomplete nationalization of Jabal ʻAmil -- The modernity of Shiʻi tradition -- Institutionalizing personal status -- Practicing sectarianism -- Adjudicating society at the Jaʻfari court -- ʻAmili Shiʻis into Shiʻi Lebanese? -- Epilogue : Making Lebanon sectarian.
While the Ottoman conquest of the Mamluk realm in 1516-17 doubtlessly changed the balance of political power in Egypt and Greater Syria, the changes must be seen as a wide-ranging transition process. The present collection of essays provides several case studies on the changing situation during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and explains how the reconfiguration of political power affected both Egypt and Greater Syria. With reference to the first volume (2017), this second volume continues the debate on key issues of the transition period with contributions by scholars from both Mamluk and Ottoman studies. By combining these perspectives, the authors provide a more comprehensive and nuanced picture of the process of transformation from Mamluk to Ottoman rule.
How poetic modernism shaped Arabic intellectual debates in the twentieth century and beyond City of Beginnings is an exploration of modernism in Arabic poetry, a movement that emerged in Beirut during the 1950s and became the most influential and controversial Arabic literary development of the twentieth century. Robyn Creswell introduces English-language readers to a poetic movement that will be uncannily familiar—and unsettlingly strange. He also provides an intellectual history of Lebanon during the early Cold War, when Beirut became both a battleground for rival ideologies and the most vital artistic site in the Middle East. Arabic modernism was centered on the legendary magazine Shi...
In The Holy Land in Observant Franciscan Texts (c. 1480–1650) Marianne Ritsema van Eck analyses the development of the complex Observant Franciscan engagement with the Holy Land during the early modern period. During these eventful centuries friars of the Franciscan establishment in Jerusalem increasingly sought to cultivate strong ideological ties between themselves and the Holy Land, participating actively in contemporary literatures of geographia sacra and Levantine pilgrimage and travel. It becomes clear how the friars constructed a collective memory using the ideological canon of their order – featuring Bonaventurian theology, marvels of the east, cartography, apocalyptic visions of history, calls for Crusade, and finally a pilgrimage-possessio of the Holy Land by Francis.
"Flawless . . . [Makdisi] reminds us of the critical declarations of secularism which existed in the history of the Middle East."—Robert Fisk, The Independent Today's headlines paint the Middle East as a collection of war-torn countries and extremist groups consumed by sectarian rage. Ussama Makdisi's Age of Coexistence reveals a hidden and hopeful story that counters this clichéd portrayal. It shows how a region rich with ethnic and religious diversity created a modern culture of coexistence amid Ottoman reformation, European colonialism, and the emergence of nationalism. Moving from the nineteenth century to the present, this groundbreaking book explores, without denial or equivocation,...