MER Article The Middle East on the Edge of the Pleasure Periphery Thomas Cook and Sons’ first tour excursions in 1841 mark the birth of a global industry, in a decade that also included the founding of the Cunard Lines and the Wells Fargo successor, American Express. Cook began to internationalize its operations in the 1860s, creating the first package tours for E Robert Vitalis • 14 min read
MER Article From the Editors (September/October 1995) Not all international travelers are tourists. The August deployment of thousands of US troops to participate in war games in Jordan and Kuwait will not show up in the statistics of this fast-growing global industry, though shore leaves may boost some bar and brothel receipts in Haifa and Bahrain. Bu The Editors • 2 min read
Editor's Picks (July/August 1995) African Rights. Sudan’s Invisible Citizens: The Policy of Abuse Against Displaced People in the North (London, 1995). Article 19. Secret Decree: New Attack on the Media in Algeria (London, 1994). Badran, Margot. Feminism, Islam and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt (Princeton, NJ: Prin The Editors • 2 min read
Letter (July/August 1995) In “Iran’s Revolutionary Impasse,” Ali Banuazizi has provided a bifurcated account of the recent developments in Iran (i.e., the coexistence of a dynamic society and a rigid, intolerant regime) that ultimately adopts the popular characterizations of Iran under the guise of debunking them. (Author not identified) • 1 min read
Recent Books on Palestinian Society Marianne Heiberg and Geir Ovensen et al, Palestinian Society in Gaza, West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem: A Survey of Living Conditions (FAFO, 1993). Ziad Abu-Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad (Indiana, 1994). Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. M Ellen Fleischmann • 6 min read
Photo Books on Palestine George Baramki Azar, Palestine: A Photographic Journey (California, 1991). J. C. Tordai, Into the Promised Land (Cornerhouse, 1991). Both of these books present photographs taken in the West Bank and Gaza Strip between 1988 and 1990 that transcend the usual images of stone-throwing youths and gun Michelle Woodward • 3 min read
Ian Lustick, Unsettled States, Disputed Lands Ian Lustick, Unsettled States, Disputed Lands: Britain and Ireland, France and Algeria, Israel and the West Bank-Gaza (Cornell, 1993). Barbara Harlow • 3 min read
Camille Mansour, Beyond Alliance Camille Mansour, Beyond Alliance: Israel and US Foreign Policy (Columbia, 1994). This long overdue inquiry into what Camille Mansour, with typical understatement, calls “the privileged character of American-Israeli relations”(p. xi) provides an exceptionally lucid analysis of a central feature of Joe Stork • 3 min read
God Power Donald Hannan Akenson, God’s Peoples: Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel and Ulster (Cornell, 1992). Gilles Kepel, The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Modern World (trans. Alan Braley) (Pennsylvania State, 1994). Hilton Obenzinger • 7 min read
Islamist Party Poised for National Power in Turkey In Turkey’s March 1994 local elections, the pro-Islamist Refah (Welfare) Party won 19 percent of all votes nationwide. This was almost equivalent to the roughly 20 percent each of the government party (True Path) and of the major opposition party (Motherland), and significantly higher than the 13 pe Haldun Gulalp • 8 min read
Egypt's New Labor Law Removes Worker Provisions After prolonged negotiations, the Egyptian government has drafted a law to diminish dramatically the state’s role in labor affairs. Expected to go before Parliament this spring, it gives both private employers and public-sector managers far greater leeway to hire and fire, and to set wages and benef Marsha Pripstein Posusney • 7 min read
