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Describes what he calls "the most ruthless regime in the world," that of Saddam Hussein & his Ba'th Party in Iraq. Shows the importance of the obsessive fabrication of "enemies," & the tortuous logic that compels Hussein to maintain a state of perpetual alert against the enemies of Arabism both inside & outside the country. Explains how such a state could be created in the late 20th century. Chapters: a chronology from 1918; the Ba'thist polity: institutions of violence; a world of fear; Ba'thism & the masses, & authority; the legitimation of Ba'thism: Pan-Arabism & Iraq, formation of the Ba'th, & the legitimation of Iraqi Ba'thism. Purges of high-ranking, 1968-1989.
In Baghdad, an enormous monument nearly twice the size of the Arc de Triomphe towers over the city. Two huge forearms emerge from the ground, clutching two swords that clash overhead. Those arms are enlarged casts of those of Saddam Hussein, showing every bump and follicle. The "Victory Arch" celebrates a victory over Iran (in their eight-year-long war) that never happened. This text is a study of the interplay between art and politics - of how culture, normally an unquestioned good, can play into the hands of a power with devastating effects. Kanan Makiya uses the culture invented by Saddam Hussein as a window into the nature of totalitarianism and shows how art can become the weapon of dictatorship. Under Saddam Hussein, culture connived in his evil - this text explains how. It should be useful reading for anyone concerned with the power of culture and the culture of power.
The terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, the Afghan conflict, waves of migration, and the presence of twelve million Muslims in the European Union: these are just a few of the things that have helped contribute to a growing interest in Islam, its culture, and its followers. They awaken old and new questions about a religious, cultural, and political reality that 1,200,000,000 people consider themselves a part of. This book is the result of a series of extended interviews between an internationally acclaimed expert on Islam and two journalists who have dedicated themselves for many years to studying key themes of Islam and analyzing the possibility of coexistence between people of different f...
Of Questions and Answers.
During the first six-seven centuries of the Islamic era there was a very lively exchange between Christian and Islamic thinking. It was a period when Christian theologians of various denominations had to find ways of expressing their traditional ideas in Arabic. In the process their thinking developed. The papers in this volume represent the wide range of this field, including detailed studies of such key writers as Abū Rā’itah, Yaḥyā b. ‘Adī and Theodore Abū Qūrrah, as well as probably the earliest, anonymous, Christian apology in Arabic. The Islamic context in which such writers worked is also dealt with, as is the wider geographical spread of Christian Arabic thought extending to Islamic Spain.
Hailed as one of the most important books ever written on the state of the modern Middle East, this brave and controversial work confronts the rhetoric ofArab and pro-Arab intellectuals with the realities of political brutality in the Arab world.
First published in 1989, just before the Gulf War broke out, REPUBLIC OF FEAR was the only book that explained the motives of the Saddam Hussein regime in invading and annexing Kuwait. This updated edition relates how the Arab Ba'th Socialist Party has transformed and controlled Iraq with fear since 1968. An important and timely book.
By analyzing political terms, concepts, and idioms as used by Saddam Hussein and the Ba'th regime, author Ofra Bengio illuminates Iraq's political culture and the events that these expressions have both reflected and shaped.
"The Iraqi revolution of 1958 was a landmark in the history of the Middle East. Only two years after the Suez Affair, when pan-Arab sentiments were riding high throughout the region, a group of nationalist officers of the Iraqi army overthrew the monarchy and esetablished a republican regime. This book assesses the causes and the social, political and economic consequences of the revolution which destroyed the old social order and led, after a protracted political struggle, to the rule of the Baath Party and since the late 1970s, Saddam Hussein. The inspiration of the study is Hanna Batatu's major work on the social and economic bases of Iraqi politics. 'The Old Social Classes and the Revolu...
In the Critique of Christian Origins Abd al-Jabbar develops what might be considered the first Islamic history of Christianity, analyzing the Bible, church rituals, and Christian miracle accounts in the process. Unlike Muslim scholars before him, Abd al-Jabbar criticizes Christianity not only theologically, but also on historical grounds. This edition, which includes a fully vocalized Arabic edition of the text and a complete English translation, accompanied by detailed explanatory notes, a glossary, a bibliography, and three indexes, makes this important work readily accessible to students and specialists alike.--provided by publisher.