Selected by Fred Rhodes

WOMEN IN KUWAIT

The Politics of Gender

By Haya AI Mughni

Published by Saqi Books

ISBN 0 86356 358 9 price £14.95 paperback

This updated and expanded classic, now available in paperback, is a compelling account of the fight of Kuwaiti women for their rights. It is the only book about women’s organisations in a Gulf country.

The book discusses a wide range of issues in terms of their impact on the role of women in Kuwait: class, tribe and politics; the discovery of oil; the growth of the state; Islamic revival and gender politics.

Al Mughni’s study shows that women’s loyalties are primarily to their families and kin, and that they act in ways which reinforce rather than challenge female subordination.

This new edition includes two chapters on post-war Kuwait, one of which discusses the impact of the war experience on women’s gender activism and political status, while the other looks at the religious and liberal debates on women and the changing nature of the relationship between state, political groups and women’s groups.

REVISING CULTURE, REINVENTING PEACE

The Influence of Edward W Said

Edited by Naseer Aruri and Muhammad A Shuraydi

Published by Olive Branch Press
ISBN 1 56656 357 7 price $17.95 paperback

Throughout the last quarter of the 20th century, Columbia University professor Edward W Said’s work has been recognised as a major influence on literature, cultural studies, and Palestinian nationalism. President of the Modern Language Association, concert pianist, and confidant to world leaders, he is the author of 17 books, including the seminal Orientalism, which has shaped and reshaped academic disciplines and political movements, spanning continents and linking formerly disparate intellectual pursuits.

Revising Culture, Reinventing Peace examines the influence of Said’s work on issues as diverse as the disability rights movement and the future of the Palestinian and Jewish people, the economics of orientalism and America’s fascination with the cultural history of imperial Britain.

This book includes 10 essays presented at the conference ?Culture, Politics, and Peace,’ which explored the scholarly contributions of Said. The essays examine the core of Said’s humanistic philosophy. They are an appreciation of the indispensable contributions he has made ?to a whole style and method of thought that takes ideas and culture seriously as crucially linked to structures of oppression and processes of emancipation?. Said is truly a renaissance man with an international reputation.

THE ECONOMY OF IRAN

The US, Britain and Nasser’s Egypt, 1953-57

By Edited by Parvin Alizadeh published by IB TAURIS

ISBN: 1 86064 464 3 price £39.50 hardback

Post-revolutionary Iran stands in the midst of economic deterioration despite its expanded economic role heralded by the Islamic revolution of 1979. The state’s enlarged role in the economy has been accompanied, not by economic redistribution as anticipated, but by acute macroeconomic instability. This book explores the causes and effects of this far-reaching problem.

Authored by an impressive pool of international scholars and academics, it concentrates on the state’s role in the economic and social development of Iran in the post-revolutionary period. Special emphasis is given to economic performance, as the book explains the reasons for Iran’s extreme macroeconomic instability. By analysing the revolution itself, the war with Iraq, the economic embargo imposed by the US, and erratic oil prices, possible reasons for instability are explored.

The book includes a section focusing on women’s roles within Iran’s failing economic system. Here, the dynamic social conditions caused by the de-feminisation of employment and increased sexual segregation in the workplace and education are highlighted as further contributing to the deteriorating economic state of Iran.

The Economy of Iran provides invaluable information to anyone interested in the political and economic events in Iran. The Iranian example of economic decline, ironically, opposes the Islamic revolution’s intent, supplying an intriguing case of study.

BAHRAIN, KUWAIT & QATAR

Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar all played central roles in one of the great stories of the 20th century: the growth of oil and gas as the world’s fuel of choice, and the consequent remaking of much of the world in the image of the industrial West.

It is only in recent years that Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar have opened themselves to the outside world as anything other than business centres. Today’s Gulf defies the stereotype and presents the visitor with a set of contradictions. It is both cosmopolitan and insular. It honours ancient tradition amid an overly modern, even plastic society. Western visitors failing to look beyond the surface have often dismissed these countries as dull and expensive. This is simplistic and fails to do them justice.

Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar’s archaeological and cultural heritage is fascinating. It includes one of the world’s oldest known civilisations, Dilmun, and the only ancient Greek settlement in the Gulf. Today, all three countries offer a fascinating blend of tradition and modernity, and all remain off the beaten track.

The Gulf states are clearly, and proudly, Middle Eastern, and yet are completely unlike anywhere else in the region, offering the traveller the feeling of entering undiscovered territory.

TURKEY AND CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES IN TRANSITION

Towards Membership of the EU

Edited by S Togan and V N Balasubramanyam Published by Palgrave ISBN 0 333 92294 8 price ?55.00 hardback

ISBN 0 333 92294 8 price ?55.00 hardback

This book offers a comparative study of the Central and Eastern European and Turkish economies that analyses the implications of EU enlargement and their inclusion. The contributors discuss issues related to the creation of a legal infrastructure that encourages entrepreneurial initiative, fair competition, market forces and investor confidence. They assess the benefits of following prudent monetary and fiscal policies together with appropriate competition, trade and foreign direct investment policies in Turkey and Central and Eastern Europe.

JERUSALEM The Contested City

By Menachem Klein published by C Hurst & Co

ISBN 1 85065 576 6 price ?17.50 paperback

ISBN 1 85065 575 8 price ?35.00 hardbackk

This book sheds light on the political history of Jerusalem in Arab-Israeli relations since the 1970s, a relationship of unequal partners that has in recent months been the focus of clashes in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Indeed the current unrest ? known as the Al Aqsa Intifada ? was precipitated by a visit to Jerusalem’s most holy Muslim site by Ariel Sharon, a Likud politician and former Israeli defence minister, recently elected as prime minister of Israel.

Klein adopts a multidisciplinary approach ? involving history, geography, city planning, sociology and international relations ? in order to integrate the political status of the city with its complex urban reality, thereby dispelling many of the myths that shape political discourse about the city. Too often, he argues, Jerusalem’s complex political geography has been overlooked in the rush to maximise short-term political gains.

The book discusses whether the unrest, amounting to civil war, of recent months can be solved by negotiation over the status of the city and its holy sites, the most contentious issues dividing the two sides.

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