{"title":"Reinventing the Sheikhdom: Clan, Power and Patronage in Mohammed bin Zayed’s UAE by Matthew Hedges (review)","authors":"Kristian Coates Ulrichsen","doi":"10.1353/jsa.2023.a899957","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jsa.2023.a899957","url":null,"abstract":"In Reinventing the Sheikhdom, Matthew Hedges makes a persuasive case that the United Arab Emirates has been transformed over the decade since the Arab Spring from a collection of seven emirates into a far closer approximation of a unitary state based on Abu Dhabi and dominated by Shaykh Muhammad bin Zayid Al Nahyan. Hedges was detained in the UAE in May 2018 while conducting fieldwork for the doctoral thesis, which forms the basis for the book. He was accused of spying for the United Kingdom’s Secret Intelligence Service and sentenced to life imprisonment in November 2018 before being released and deported amid an international outcry. In this first book since his release, Hedges examines how mechanisms of power and control evolved in the 2010s to create a new political reality that was itself rooted in changing considerations of regime security across the UAE.","PeriodicalId":18627,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Journal","volume":"76 1","pages":"549 - 550"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47277018","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Saudi Arabia: Wahhabism and the World: Understanding Saudi Arabia's Global Influence on Islam, edited by Peter Mandaville (book review)","authors":"D. Commins","doi":"10.3751/76.4.305","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3751/76.4.305","url":null,"abstract":"Wahhabism and the World: Understanding Saudi Arabia's Global Influence on Islam, edited by Peter Mandaville. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. 352 pages. $99 cloth, $29.95 paper.","PeriodicalId":18627,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42569012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Afghanistan: Afghan Crucible: The Soviet Invasion and the Making of Modern Afghanistan, by Elisabeth Leake (book review)","authors":"T. Barfield","doi":"10.3751/76.4.301","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3751/76.4.301","url":null,"abstract":"Afghan Crucible: The Soviet Invasion and the Making of Modern Afghanistan, by Elisabeth Leake. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. 368 pages. $34.95.","PeriodicalId":18627,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48433183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Oil Thief of Baghdad: Understanding Saddam’s Motives for Invading Iran","authors":"Kenneth M. Pollack","doi":"10.3751/76.4.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3751/76.4.14","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article argues that Iraqi president Saddam Husayn’s primary motive for invading Iran in 1980 was to seize the oil of Khuzestan Province. I look at all the evidence, much of which was either overlooked in previous treatments of the subject or was unavailable: Iraq’s military moves, Ba‘th Party regime records, tapes of Saddam’s conversations, declassified United States government documents, and interviews with Iraqi generals. Reasons previously offered, like the desire to spark a counterrevolution in Tehran or regain full control of the Shatt al-‘Arab waterway, were secondary or tertiary considerations, though played up for propaganda purposes.","PeriodicalId":18627,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Journal","volume":"76 1","pages":"507 - 530"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46631667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Palestine and Palestinians: The Bride: An Illustrated History of Palestine, 1850–1948, by Roger Hardy (book review)","authors":"Gabriel Polley","doi":"10.3751/76.4.303","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3751/76.4.303","url":null,"abstract":"The Bride: An Illustrated History of Palestine, 1850–1948, by Roger Hardy. Wiltshire, UK: Mount Orleans Press, 2022. 142 pages. $39.95.","PeriodicalId":18627,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48665449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Egyptian State Media in Opposition: Al-Ahram under Morsi, 2012–2013","authors":"Limor Lavie","doi":"10.3751/76.4.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3751/76.4.12","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Based on quantitative and qualitative analysis of opinion columns in the Egyptian state newspaper Al-Ahram during Mohamed Morsi’s 2012–13 presidency, this article argues that columnists substantially shifted to critical commentary on government policies and advanced an oppositional political agenda. Seeking to delegitimize the Muslim Brotherhood, the newspaper’s columns continued to promote the worldview of the non-Islamist elite that had been privileged under the prerevolutionary regime. Only a small number of columns sided with Morsi and his allies. These findings support the claim that Egypt’s established political institutions helped undermine Morsi’s electoral legitimacy.","PeriodicalId":18627,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Journal","volume":"76 1","pages":"466 - 486"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49278447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Saudi Arabia: Charity in Saudi Arabia: Civil Society under Authoritarianism, by Nora Derbal (book review)","authors":"J. Benthall","doi":"10.3751/76.4.304","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3751/76.4.304","url":null,"abstract":"Charity in Saudi Arabia: Civil Society under Authoritarianism, by Nora Derbal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 350 pages. $120 cloth, e-book.","PeriodicalId":18627,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48146412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Syria: Revolutions Aesthetic: A Cultural History of Ba'thist Syria, by Max Weiss (book review)","authors":"A. Firat","doi":"10.3751/76.4.306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3751/76.4.306","url":null,"abstract":"Revolutions Aesthetic: A Cultural History of Ba'thist Syria, by Max Weiss. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2022. 456 pages. $90 cloth, $30 paper.","PeriodicalId":18627,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42364595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}