Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Iraq Against the World
The move away from post-Cold War unipolarity and the rise of revisionist states like Russia and China pose a rapidly escalating and confounding threat for the liberal international order. In Iraq against the World, Samuel Helfont offers a new narrative of Iraqi foreign policy after the 1991 Gulf War to argue that Saddam Hussein executed a political warfare campaign that facilitated this disturbance to global norms. Following the Gulf War, the UN imposed sanctions and inspections on the Iraqi state--conditions that Saddam Hussein was in no position to challenge militarily or through traditional diplomacy. Hussein did, however, wage an influence campaign designed to break the unity of the UN S...
Compulsion in Religion
Samuel Helfont draws on extensive research with Ba'thist archives to investigate the roots of the religious insurgencies that erupted in Iraq following the American-led invasion in 2003. In looking at Saddam Hussein's policies in the 1990s, many have interpreted his support for state-sponsored religion as evidence of a dramatic shift away from Arab nationalism toward political Islam. While Islam did play a greater role in the regime's symbols and Saddam's statements in the 1990s than it had in earlier decades, the regime's internal documents challenge this theory. The "Faith Campaign" Saddam launched during this period was the culmination of a plan to use religion for political ends, begun u...
Compulsion in Religion
This book draws on newly available archives from the Iraqi state and Ba'th Party to present a revisionist history of Saddam Hussein's religious policies. The point of doing this, other than to correct the current understanding of Saddam's political use of religion through his presidency, is to argue that the policies promoted then directly contributed to the rise of religious insurgencies in post-2003 Iraq as well as the current and probably future crises in the country. In looking at Saddam's policies in the 1990s, many have interpreted his support for state religion as evidence of a dramatic shift away from Arab nationalism, toward political Islam. But this book shows that the 'Faith Campa...
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, Islam and Modernity
This work analyzes how the conditions of modernity have shaped the contemporary views of the prominent Islamic thinker, Yusuf al- Qaradawi. At the outset, it lays the foundation for a discussion of modernity by reviewing the ideas of prominent philosophers, such as Kant, Hegel, as well as of contemporary social scientists, such as Habermas. Based on their understanding of modernity, this work shows how increased education, mass communication, and migration have changed the way Muslims perceive their religion. It also shows how al-Qaradawi's thinking reflects this. Al-Qaradawi is put into historical perspective through a review of modernity in the Islamic world over the last 200 years. This is followed by an examination of his views on a number of pertinent issues, including science, massmedia, jihad, international relations, democracy, and feminism. The findings are based on hundreds of fatwas, sermons, and interviews in the Arab media, and on relevant secondary sources, both in English and Arabic. As of yet, no in-depth work of this length has been published on al-Qaradawi in English.
The Long 1989
The fall of communism in Europe is now the frame of reference for any mass mobilization, from the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement to Brexit. Even thirty years on, 1989 still figures as a guide and motivation for political change. It is now a platitude to call 1989 a "world event," but the chapters in this volume show how it actually became one. The authors of these nine essays consider how revolutionary events in Europe resonated years later and thousands of miles away: in China and South Africa, Chile and Afghanistan, Turkey and the USA. They trace the circulation of people, practices, and concepts that linked these countries, turning local developments into a global phenomenon. At the s...
The Ba'thification of Iraq
Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq as a dictator for nearly a quarter century before the fall of his regime in 2003. Using the Ba’th party as his organ of meta-control, he built a broad base of support throughout Iraqi state and society. Why did millions participate in his government, parrot his propaganda, and otherwise support his regime when doing so often required betraying their families, communities, and beliefs? Why did the “Husseini Ba’thist” system prove so durable through uprisings, two wars, and United Nations sanctions? Drawing from a wealth of documents discovered at the Ba’th party’s central headquarters in Baghdad following the US-led invasion in 2003, The Ba’thification ...
Hezbollah
For thirty years, Hezbollah has played a pivotal role in Lebanese and global politics. That visibility has invited Hezbollah’s lionization and vilification by outside observers, and at the same time has prevented a clear-eyed view of Hezbollah’s place in the history of the Middle East and its future course of action. Dominique Avon and Anaïs-Trissa Khatchadourian provide here a nonpartisan account which offers insights into Hezbollah that Western media have missed or misunderstood. Now part of the Lebanese government, Hezbollah nevertheless remains in tension with both the transnational Shiite community and a religiously diverse Lebanon. Calling for an Islamic regime would risk losing c...
State of Repression
A new account of modern Iraqi politics that overturns the conventional wisdom about its sectarian divisions How did Iraq become one of the most repressive dictatorships of the late twentieth century? The conventional wisdom about Iraq's modern political history is that the country was doomed by its diverse social fabric. But in State of Repression, Lisa Blaydes challenges this belief by showing that the country's breakdown was far from inevitable. At the same time, she offers a new way of understanding the behavior of other authoritarian regimes and their populations. Drawing on archival material captured from the headquarters of Saddam Hussein's ruling Ba'th Party in the wake of the 2003 US...
Outlier States
Outlier States examines the role of the United States as an enforcer against the development of nuclear weapons in the international community. In the Bush era Iran and North Korea were branded “rogue” states for their flouting of international norms, and changing their regimes was the administration’s goal. The Obama administration has chosen instead to call the countries nuclear “outliers” and has proposed means other than regime change to bring them back into “the community of nations.” Outlier States, the successor to Litwak’s influential Regime Change: U.S. Strategy through the Prism of 9/11 (2007), explores this significant policy adjustment and raises questions about i...
After the Caliphate
In 2014, the declaration of the Islamic State caliphate was hailed as a major victory by the global jihadist movement. But it was short-lived. Three years on, the caliphate was destroyed, leaving its surviving fighters – many of whom were foreign recruits – to retreat and scatter across the globe. So what happens now? Is this the beginning of the end of IS? Or can it adapt and regroup after the physical fall of the caliphate? In this timely analysis, terrorism expert Colin P. Clarke takes stock of IS – its roots, its evolution, and its monumental setbacks – to assess the road ahead. The caliphate, he argues, was an anomaly. The future of the global jihadist movement will look very mu...
