MER Article Editor's Picks (Fall 2010) Abi-Mershed, Osama. Apostles of Modernity: Saint-Simonians and the Civilizing Mission in Algeria (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010). Albrecht, Holger. Contentious Politics in the Middle East: Political Opposition Under Authoritarianism (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 201 The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article From the Editor (Fall 2010) On July 6, the impish economic historian Niall Ferguson took the podium at the Aspen Ideas Festival, an annual seminar series for the rich and powerful on how to remain rich and powerful. Ferguson, as is his wont, began by tweaking the perpetual American reluctance to admit that the United States is The Editors • 4 min read
Current Analysis Disaster Strikes the Indus River Valley The flooding of most of the Indus River valley in Pakistan has the makings of a history-altering catastrophe. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that 20 million Pakistanis are in dire need, many of them homeless or displaced, others cut off from help by falle The Editors • 11 min read
Current Analysis Outlaws of the Mediterranean At 4 am Eastern Mediterranean time on May 31, elite Israeli commandos rappelled from helicopters onto the deck of the Turkish-registered ship Mavi Marmara, part of an international “Freedom Flotilla” that had met in Cyprus and then set sail to deliver humanitarian relief supplies to the besieged Gaza Strip. The The Editors • 11 min read
MER Article Editor's Picks (Summer 2010) Abisaab, Malek. Militant Women of a Fragile Nation (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2010). Backmann, René. A Wall in Palestine (New York: Picador, 2010). Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010). DiMaggio, Anthony. The Editors • 1 min read
MER Article From the Editor (Summer 2010) During his second term, his approval rating heading stubbornly south, President George W. Bush was fond of comparing himself to Harry Truman. The dour Missourian, too, was “misunderestimated” -- lightly regarded when thrust onto the world stage and then raked over the coals for strike breaking and a The Editors • 5 min read
MER Article Editor's Picks (Spring 2010) Baer, Marc David. Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in the Ottoman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Baer, Marc David. The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries and Secular Turks (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009). Bayat, Asef. Life as Poli The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Editor's Picks (Winter 2009) Abboud, Samer and Salam Said. Syrian Foreign Trade and Economic Reform (Fife, Scotland: St. Andrews Center for Syrian Studies, 2009). Anderson, Liam and Gareth Stansfield. Crisis in Kirkuk: The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). Arjoman The Editors • 1 min read
MER Article From the Editor (Winter 2009) Some words cannot escape the horrors of the human past. When, in September 2001, President George W. Bush proclaimed a “crusade” against terrorism, he evoked in Muslim minds the indiscriminate slaughters by knights seeking to reclaim the Holy Land for Christendom. People have been lynched in many times and places, The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article Editor's Picks (Fall 2009) Abufarha, Nasser. The Making of a Human Bomb: An Ethnography of Palestinian Resistance (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009). Al-Ali, Naji. A Child in Palestine: The Cartoons of Naji al-Ali (London: Verso, 2009). Al-Haq. Operation Cast Lead: A Statistical Analysis (Ramallah, August 2009). Cai The Editors • 1 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Fall 2009) “In this world,” wrote the left economist Doug Henwood in these pages in 1993, “the only thing worse than being part of the evolving economic hierarchy is being excluded from it. So far, the Middle East is largely excluded.” Amid the downturn in the global economy inaugurated by the Wall The Editors • 9 min read
Current Analysis Norse Code A Minnesota farm boy gets accepted to Yale. On his first day on campus, ambling down the oak-shaded lanes, he meets a toothy young swell whose blood matches his navy blazer. The two exchange words of praise for the pleasant autumn afternoon, and then the Minnesotan ventures a query. “So,” he says, The Editors • 10 min read
