Book Reviews

Abstract

98 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. 42, No.2, Winter 2019 Book Reviews Edited by Nadia Barsoum The Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa ISLAMISM: A New Totalitarianism by Mehdi Mozaffari. United States, Boulder, Colorado Lynne Rienner Publishers 2017, 345 pages. What exactly is Islamism? And what explains its violent expansion in recent decades? Why are Islamists so determined to change the world order? Are there similarities between Islamism and classical totalitarian regimes and ideologies? Will it fail, as those regimes did in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union—or can it adapt effectively to changing realities? What are the fundamental strengths and weaknesses of the Islamic project ? Addressing these questions within a context both historical and global , Mehdi Mozaffari provides an important new framework for understanding the full impact of Islamism in the Middle East and beyond.” The author discussed the ideological roots of Islamism and the widespread dream among Muslims of restoring the vanished Islamic Civilization of creating a new Muslim empire. The author also devoted a chapter on the rise and fall of Islamic civilization in the course of history. Mozaffari deals with the world vision of Islamists and their theoretical position and the ultimate outcome of terrorism and an analysis of different scenarios that can be expected for the fate of an Islamist regime. 99 LEBANON: A Country in Fragments by Andrew Arsan. UK, London. Hurst and Company, 2018, 518 pages. This book is about the thirteen eventful years in the life of Lebanon. The author attempts to map out the landscapes of everyday life. He tries to understand how the existence of the Lebanese has been shaped by the succession of the disruptive episodes. Lebanon seems a country in the grip of permanent crisis. In recent years, it has suffered blow after blow, from Rafiq Hariri’s assassination in 2005, to the 2006 July War, to the current Syrian conflict, which has brought a million refugees streaming into the country. This is an account not just of Lebanon’s high politics, with its endless rows, walkouts, machinations and foreign alliances, but also of the politics of everyday life: all the stresses and strains the country’s inhabitants face, from electricity black-outs and uncollected rubbish to stagnating wages and property bubbles. Andrew Arsan moves between parliament and the public squares where protesters gather, between luxury high-rises and refugee camps, and between expensive nightclubs and seafront promenades , providing a comprehensive view of Lebanon in the twenty-first century. Where others have treated Lebanon’s woes as exceptional, a byproduct of its sectarianism and particular vulnerability to regional crises, Arsan argues that there is nothing particular about Lebanon’s predicament . Rather, it is a country of the age—one of neoliberal economics, populist fervor, forced displacement, rising xenophobia, and public disillusion. Lebanon, in short, offers us a lens through which to look on our times. ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS IN THE MIDDLE EAST edited by Harry Verhoeven. United States, New York: Oxford University Press 2018, 345 pages. This book’s nine chapters analyze how the exploitation and representation of the environment have shaped the history of the region—and determined its place in global politics. It argues that how the ecological is understood, instrumentalized and intervened upon is the product of political struggle: deconstructing ideas and practices of environmental change means unraveling claims of authority and legitimacy. This is particularly important in a region frequently seen through the prism of environmental determinism, where ruling elites have imposed authoritarian control as the corollary of ‘environmental crisis’. This unique and urgent collection will question much of what we think we know about this pressing issue. This book rejects the separation of the Middle East’s ecological trajectory from the political and socioeconomic history, both locally and globally. 100 THE ISLAMIC STATE IN KHORASAN: Afghanistan, Pakistan and the New Central Asian Jihad by Antonio Giustozzi. United Kingdom, London: C Hurst & Co. 2018, 292 pages. The so-called Islamic State began to appear in what it calls Khorasan (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, Iran and India) in 2014. Reports of its presence were at first dismissed as propaganda, but during 2015 it became clear that IS had a serious...