(Note: This PDF file of this bibliography may be better for printing.)

[1]

I. HISTORICAL ANTHOLOGIES

Gettleman, Marvin and Stuart Schaar, eds., The Middle East and

   Islamic World Reader (New York: Grove Press, 2003). A compre-

   hensive collection of mainly primary sources, surveying 14 cen-

   turies of Islamic Middle Eastern history.

Hourani, Albert, Philip S. Khoury,  & Mary C. Wilson, eds.,

  The Modern Middle East: A Reader (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni-

  versity of California Press, 1993). A useful compilation of scholar-

  ly articles.

Khater, Akram Fouad, Sources in the History of the Modern Middle

 East  (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004).

 Primary sources on the Middle East and North Africa, 19 to 21

 century.

Williams, John Alden, The World of Islam (Austin: University of

  Texas Press, 1994).  A well-chosen collection of primary sources

  on early Islam, skillfully translated.

II. PERIODICALS

International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES). Published

  under he auspices of the Middle East Studies Association of North

  America at the University of Michigan, by Cambridge University

  Press (40 West 20th St.,] New York, NY 10011). The main English-

  language refereed journal

Middle East Report. Published monthly by the Middle East Research

 & Information Project (MERIP) by Blackwell Publishers, Inc., 350

  Main Street, Malden, MA  02148).  The best progressive review of

  contemporary events in the region. Worth subscribing to at

  merip@nb.net

III. GENERAL WORKS ON THE MIDDLE EAST

Andersen, Roy R., Robert F. Seibert, Jon G. Wagner, Politics and

  Change in the Middle East: Sources of Conflict and Accommod-

  ation (7th ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003). A

  textbook that offers one of the best available introductions to

  the society and politics of the Middle East. Especially good on

  refuting crude western stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims.

 [2]

Burke, Edmund, III, ed., Struggle and Survival in the Modern Mid-

  dle East (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993). One

  of the modern classics of Middle Eastern social history, contain-

  ing biographies of people, some well known, and others not so.

Cleveland, William L., A History of the Modern Middle East (2nd ed.,

  Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000). The best English-language textbook

   on 19th and 20th century Middle Eastern history.

Egger, Vernon O., A History of the Muslim World to 1405: The Making

  of a Civilization (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall,

  2004). Text and primary documents covering the first 8 centuries of

  Muslim history.

Eickelman, Dale, The Modern Middle East and Central Asia: An Anthro-

  pological Approach (4th ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall,

  2001). Another insightful anthropological introduction.

Fromkin, David, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman

  Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (New York: Avon

  Books, 1989). A well-written, although conventional, diplomatic-mili-

  tary analysis of World War I, British duplicity, and post-war

  emergence of Turkey.

Humphreys, R. Stephen, Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East

  in a Troubled Age (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,

  1999). One of the best analyses of the contemporary Middle East,

  providing a needed corrective to Bernard Lewis’ work (below p. 3).

McCarthy, Justin, The Ottoman Turks: An Introductory History to 1923

  (London and New York: Longman, 1997). Clearly written survey.

Owen, Roger, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern

  Middle East (2nd ed., New York: Routledge, 2000).  A sophisticated

  analysis of the dynamics of the Middle Eastern state system.

Said, Edward, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978). A classic

  work analyzing the west’s deep-seated misunderstanding of the Islam-

  ic world. To be supplemented by Macfie, Alexander Lyons, ed.,

  Orientalism: A Reader (New York: New York University Press, 2001).

  A collection of essays on Orientalism by Said, his supporters and

  critics.

Stivers, William, America’s Confrontation with Revolutionary Change 

  In The Middle East (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986). The best

  historical analysis of U.S. policy on the Middle East.

                       [3]

Yapp, M.E., The Near East Since the First World War: A History to 1995

  (2nd ed., New York: Longman, 1996). A reliable encyclopedic survey.

Yergin, Daniel, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power

   (1991; reissued, New York: Free Press, 1993). Pulitzer prize-win-

   ning historical study of the worldwide oil industry seen mainly

   from the vantage of the oil companies.

III. ISLAM

Al-Azmeh, Aziz, Islams and Modernities (London and New York: Verso,

  1996). A penetrating view into the diversity of Islamic practices 

  and regional differences in the Muslim world. A good corrective

  to the essentialized concept of “Islam” current in western scholar-

  ship, and also in popular and journalistic discourse.

Arkoun, Mohammed, Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, translated

  from the French and edited by Robert D. Lee (Boulder, CO: Westview,

  1994). One of the leading contemporary scholars of Islam presents a

  stimulating perspective.

Bulliet, Richard W., Islam: The View from the Edge (New York: Colum-

  bia University Press, 1995).  A Middle Eastern medievalist, Bulliet

   argues that most Muslims can live without an Islamic state since their

   lives revolve around powerful social structures, which order their

   existence.

Cole, Juan R., Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and

  History of Shi‘ite Islam (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2002). A masterful

  study of the subject.

Denny, Frederick M., An Introduction to Islam (New York: Macmillan,

  1993). An excellent introduction to Islam as a religious system.

Hodgson, Marshall G.S., The Venture of Islam: Conscience and Hi-

  story in a World Civilization (3 vols., (Chicago: University of

  Chicago Press, 1974).  Still pertinent after 30 years, this classic

  study of Islam’s rich diversity, places its vast subject within a

  global context.

Lewis, Bernard, “Roots of Muslim Rage,” Atlantic Monthly, Sept.,

  1990, a grim perspective by a much-touted leading orientalist

  against   whom the late Edward Said sparred for years. Said’s

  “Clash of Ignorance,” The Nation, October 22, 2001, is a vigorous

  polemic against Lewis and a similarly oriented Samuel Huntington

  who wrote on The Clash of Civilizations between the West and the

  Islamic World. (Both Lewis’ and Said‘s pieces are in Gettleman/

  Schaar, The Middle East and Islamic World Reader, reading # 36).

[4]                                                                          

Schimmel, Annemarie, Islam: An Introduction (Albany, NY: State

  University of New York Press, 1992). A general survey by a leading

  authority on Sufism, or mystical Islam.

Watt, Montgomery, Muhammad: Statesman and Prophet (New York:

  Oxford University Press, 1990).  An abridgment of two earlier books

  by the eminent author.

IV. WOMEN AND GENDER

Ahmed, Leila, Women and Gender in Islam (New Haven, CT: Yale Univer-

  sity Press, 1992).  A scholarly study of women throughout Islamic

  history.

Gettleman/Schaar, The Middle East and Islamic World Reader, readings

  # 4, 9, 15a and c, and 33 a and b all deal with women and gender.

Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck and John L. Esposito, eds., Islam, Gender

  and Social Change  (London and New York: Oxford University Press,

  1997).  Shows how Muslim women have struggled to define gender

  across North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

Kandiyoti, Deniz, ed., Women, Islam & the State (Philadelphia: Temple

   University Press, 1991).  Covers Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iran,

   Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Turkey and Yemen.

Keddie, Nikki R., and Beth Baron, eds., Women in Middle Eastern

  History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender (New Haven, CT:

  Yale University Press, 1991). Important studies on women and gender.

Meriwether, Margaret L. and Judith Tucker, eds., A Social History of

  Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview,

  1999). Useful collection including historiographical studies.

Schimmel, Annemarie, My Soul Is a Woman: The Feminine in Islam (New

  York: and London: Continuum, 2003). Through an examination of

  sacred texts and social customs the author explores both Islamic

  doctrines and feminism.

Tucker, Judith, ed., Arab Women: Old Boundaries New Frontiers (Bloom-

  ington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993. Treats

  gender discourses -- women’s work, politics and gender roles.

Walther, Wibke, Women in Islam from Medieval to Modern Times, trans-

  lated from the German by C.S. Salt (Princeton, NJ: Markus Weiner,

  1992). Insightful historical survey.

   [5]

V. THE ARAB WORLD

Baker, Raymond William, Islam Without Fear: Egypt and the New Islam-

  ists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003).  This veter-

  an scholar of Egypt, examines the varieties of Muslim conviction

  along the Nile.

Barakat, Halim, The Arab World: Society, Culture, and State (Berkeley

  and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993). Wide-rang-

  ing views of a sociologist and novelist originally from Syria.

Bushnaq, Inea, ed., Arab Folktales (New York: Pantheon, 1986). Beaut-

  ifully-translated collection of folk literature, offering much in-

  sight into Arab culture.

Crystal, Jill, Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in

  Kuwait and Qatar (Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge Univer-

  sity Press, 1995. Fascinating account about how the Kuwaiti mer-

  chants abdicated their political power in return for regular oil

  revenues.

Fandy, Mamoun, Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent (New York:

   St. Martin’s Press, 1999). Description of the sources of instabi-

  ity in the oil-rich desert kingdom.

Gendzier, Irene, Notes From the Minefield: United States Intervention

  in Lebanon and the Middle East, 1945-1958 (Boulder, CO: Westview,

 1999).  Rich archival research reveals the larger patterns of U.S.

  global policy in the post-World War period.

Hinnebusch, Raymond A., Syria: Revolution From Above (London and

  New York: Routledge, 2002).  The best view into developments in a

  country that might be a future U.S. military target.

Hourani, Albert, A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Bel-

  knap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991). Highly readable, po-

 litical and cultural study, but skimpy on social history.

Khalidi, Rashid, Lisa Anderson, Muhammad Muslih and Reeva S. Simon,

  eds., The Origins of Arab Nationalism (New York: Columbia University

  Press, 1991). Presents the most up-to-date scholarship on this important

  Subject.

Rodinson, Maxime, The Arabs, translated from the French by Arthur

  Goldhammer (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981). In-

  sightful though dated synthesis by a veteran scholar.

[6]

Salibi, Kamal, A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Re-

  visited (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,

  1988). Still the best history of the country.

Sluglett, Marion Farouk- and Peter Sluglett, Iraq since 1958: From Re-

  volution to Dictatorship (revised, London & New York: I.B. Tauris,

  2001). An important, deeply researched, well-written historical

  narrative.

Weaver, Mary Anne, A Portrait of Egypt: A Journey Through the World

  of Militant Islam (revised ed., New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

  2000). Vividly-written collection of New Yorker articles.

VI. AFGHANISTAN, IRAN, PAKISTAN, TURKEY

Abrahamian, Ervand, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton, NJ.:

  Princeton University Press, 1982). Comprehensive analysis of causes

  of Iranian revolution of 1979 which ultimately brought Ayatollah

  Khomeini to power, to be supplemented by the same author’s “1953

  Coup in Iran,” Science & Society, Summer, 2001.

Keddie, Nikki R., Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New

  Haven: Yale University Press, 2003). One of the best histories.

Macfie, A.L., Ataturk (London and New York: Longman, 1994).  A

  biography that unfolds the creation of modern Turkey.

Rashid, Ahmad, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in

  Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000). Clear-

  ly written, informed analysis of the Taliban’s rise to power, by a

  distinguished Pakistani journalist, whose Jihad: The Rise of Mili-

  tant Islam in Central Asia (Yale, 2002) takes the argument to coun-

  tries north of Afghanistan.

Rubin, Barnett R., The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation

  and Collapse in the International System (2nd ed., New Haven, CT:

  Yale University Press, 2002).  Authoritative, sophisticated study of

  the background of the 2001-2002 U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Ziring, Lawrence, Pakistan: At the Crosscurrent of History (Oxford,

  UK: One World Publications, 2004). Good introduction to the coun-

  try by a seasoned political scientist, which can be supplemented by

  Barry Bearak’s “Pakistan: A Journey Through a State of Disequili-

  brium,” New York Times Magazine, Dec. 7, 2003.

              [7]

VII. PALESTINIAN NATIONALISM AND ZIONISM

Bickerton, Ian J. and Carla L. Klausner, A Concise History of the 

  Arab- Israeli Conflict (4th ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice

  Hall, 2002).  The best introduction to materials on the subject,

  containing many primary source documents.

Chomsky, Noam, Middle East Illusions (Lanham, MD: Rowman

  and Littlefield, 2003), update of the eminent linguist’s 1974 Peace

  in the Middle East, adding new material on the Arab-Israeli con-

  flict and the U.S. role in it.  Chomsky advocates a bi-national state

  as a solution to the conflict.

Dowty, Alan, The Jewish State (Berkeley, CA: The University of Cali-

  fornia Press, 1998).  A sympathetic but not uncritical view of

  Israel’s development since statehood by this scholar who often 

  teaches and lives in Israel.

Enderlin, Charles and Robert D. Hack, eds., Shattered Dreams: The

  Failure of the Peace Process in the Middle East, 1995-2002, trans-

  lated from the French by Susan Fairfield (New York: Other Press,

  2003). Jerusalem journalist for the French television network 

  France 2, Enderlin, and his co-editor have compiled a richly docu-

  mented account of the failure of the Oslo peace process.

Geneva Accords, 2003. An unofficial effort by prominent Israeli and

  Palestinian negotiators meeting in Geneva, Switzerland to complete

  the 2001 Taba negotiations for a 2-state solution (the Taba text is

  in Gettleman/Schaar, The Middle East and Islamic World Reader,

  reading  #25c while the Geneva text is on:

  www.mideastweb.org/geneva1.hmt)

Gerner, Deborah J., One Land, Two People: The Conflict Over Palestine

  (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991). Excellent historical textbook.

Gettleman/Schaar, The Middle East and Islamic World Reader, chapter

  V, offers a documented survey of the Palestinian-Zionist conflict, in-

  cluding Herzl’s 1896 Jewish State, early Arab perceptions of Zionism’s

  dangers, The Balfour Declaration, documents from the British man-

  date, Vladimir Jabotinsky’s “Revisionism,” the creation of Israel,

  PLO and Hamas documents, accounts of the first and second intifadas,

  statements of Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon.

Hertzberg, Arthur, ed., The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and

  Reader (New York: Jewish Publications Society, © 1959, reprint

  ed., 1997). Major Zionist texts from early ideologues to David

  Ben-Gurion.

 [8]

Khalidi, Rashid, Palestinian Identity: the Construction of Modern

  National Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press,

  1998). An important scholarly study.

Quandt, William B., Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-

  Israeli Conflict Since 1967 (revised ed., Berkeley, CA: University

  of California Press, 2001). An insider’s account of U.S. efforts to

  mediate the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Said, Edward, The Question of Palestine (New York: Times Books,

  1979). One of Said’s earliest and most comprehensive treatments of

  the issues.

Sayigh, Yazid, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Pales-

  tinian Nationalist Movement, 1949-1993 (New York: Oxford Univer-

  sity Press, 1999).  General survey of the Palestinian struggle for

  statehood, with an excellent bibliography.

VIII. RELIGIOUS RADICALISM

Ayubi, Nazih, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World

  (New York: Routledge, 1991). A highly intelligent and well-

  informed analysis of Islamic radicalism.

Beinin, Joel and Joe Stork, eds., Political Islam: Essays from Mid-

  dle East Report (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,

  1997). Collection of essays from Middle East Report (see p. 1).

Burke, Jason, Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror (London: I.B.

  Tauris, 2003). A nuanced and complex portrait of al-Qaeda and other

  Islamic extremist groups.

Sprinzak, Ehud, Brother Against Brother: Violence and Extremism in

  Israeli Politics from Altalena to the Rabin Assassination (New York:

  Free Press, 1991). A well-researched study of Zionist fundamentalist

  radicalism.

IX. 9/11, THE WARS IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ & U.S. POLICIES

Dudziak, Mary L., ed., September 11 in History: A Watershed Moment?

  (Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2003). A set of highly nuanced,

  and diverse answers to the subtitle’s question by a high-level

  group of lawyers and historians.

      [9]

Falk, Richard A., The Great Terror War (Northampton, MA: Olive

  Branch Press, 2002). Milbank Professor Emeritus of International

  Law at Princeton University, Falk asks where the U.S. war on terror-

  ism will take us. See his provocative essay on “Global Patriotism”

  in Gettleman/Schaar, Middle East and Islamic World,  reading 35c.

Greenwald, Robert, Uncovered (2003).  A powerful documentary film re-

  vealing the deceptions and distortions used by the Bush administra-

  tion to  “sell” its Iraq War. Available through www.MoveOn.Org

Hiro, Dilip, Iraq: In the Eye of the Storm (New York: Thunder’s Mouth

  Press /Nation Books, 2002).  Seasoned reporter and author of  24

  books, in this one Hiro explores how twelve years of U.N. sanctions

  transformed Iraq, making the Iraqi population totally dependent

  on the Baath Party-controlled Iraqi state.

Lifton, Robert Jay, Superpower Syndrome: America’s Apocalyptic Con-

  frontation with the World (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation

  Books, 2003).  The eminent psycho-historian and a National Book

  Award winner, explores two apocalyptic visions -- one Islamist, the

  other American -- caught in a cycle of violence.

Meyerowitz, Joanne, ed., History and September 11, Special Issue of

   The Journal of American History (Sept, 2002), a diverse and often

   penetrating and insightful set of essays by American historians.

Purdum, Todd S. and the staff of The New York Times, A Time of Our

 Choosing: America’s War in Iraq (New York: Times Books/Henry

  Holt, 2003). Far from the last word on this subject, this Times his-

  tory is far more useful than the triumphalist military account by
  Williamson Murray and Robert H. Scales, Jr., The Iraq War (Cam-

  bridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003)

Rampton, Sheldon and John Stauber, Weapons of Mass Deception: The

  Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq (New York: Tarcher, 2003),.

  and Scheer, Christopher, Robert Scheer and Lakshmi Chaudhry, The

  Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq (Brooklyn and New York:

  Akashic/Seven Stories Press, 2003). Exposés of the use of the mass

  media to defendthe U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Reiff, David, “Blueprint for a Mess,” New York Times Magazine, Nov

  2, 2003; Packer, George “War After the War,” New Yorker, Nov 23,

  2003; and Danner, Mark, “Delusions in Baghdad,” New York Review

  of Books Dec. 18, 2003. Three hard-hitting accounts by diligent U.S.

  journalists covering Iraq in the period after the Bush administra-

  tion declared “victory” there.                                                                                                                     

                                                *              *              *

[This bibliography will be periodically updated on the Historians

Against the War website: www.historiansagainstwar.org, where informa-

tion about the organization may be found along with instructions on

how to become a member]

[Thanks to Dan Schrecker for graphic design assistance.  – S.S. & M.E.G.]