Book Reviews

Abstract

125 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXIV, No.2, Winter 2011 Book Reviews Edited by Nadia Barsoum CONTINUED CONFLICT OR COOPERATION? INDIA AND PAKISTAN, by Stanley Wolpert, University of California Press, Berkeley,2010, 126 pp. The author writes about India and Pakistan’s complex relationship, which has been too often defined by conflict and tragedy. This work reviews in depth the issues that have divided India and Pakistan since their inception. It is a major contribution to the analysis of the subcontinent. THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST AN ANTHOLOGY OF TEXTS AND PICTURES, edited by James B. Pritchard, Princeton University Press, 2010. With more than 130 reading selections and 300 photographs of ancient art, architecture, and artifacts, this volume provides a stimulating introduction to some of the most significant and widely studied texts of the ancient Near East, including the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Creation Epic (Enuma elish), The Code of Hammurabi, and the Baal Cycle. For Students of history, religion, the Bible, archaeology, and anthropology, this anthology provides a wealth of material for understanding the ancient Near East. FAMILY, GENDER, AND LAW IN A GLOBALIZING MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA Edited by Kenneth M. Cuno and Manisha Desai, Syracuse University Press, 2009,pp 308. The essays in this collection examine issues of gender, family and law in the Middle East and South Asia. In particular, the authors address the impact of colonialism on law, family and gender relations; the role of religious politics in writing family law and the implications for gender relations; and the tension between international standards emerging from UN conferences and conventions and various nationalists projects. CONTROLING THE PAST, OWNING THE FUTURE, The Political Uses of Archaeology in the Middle East. Edited by Ran Boytner, Lynn Swartz Dodd, and Bradley J. Parker. The University of Arizona Press,Tucson 2010. Pp 312. What are the political uses- and misuses- of archaeology in the Middle East? In answering this question, the contributors to this volume lend their regional expertise to a variety of case studies , including the Taliban’ destruction of BUDDHAS in Afghanistan. The commercialization of archaeology in Israel, the training of Egyptian archaeology inspectors and the debate over Turkish identity sparked by the filmTroy, among other provocative subjects. 126 APOLCALYPSE IN ISLAM by Jean-Pierre Filiu, translated by M. B. DeBevoise. University of California Press, Berkeley, Ca. Pp260. This is an eye opening exploration of a troubling phenomenon: the fast-growing belief in Muslim Countries that the end of the world is at hand-an with it the “Great Battle” prophesied by both Sunni and Shi’i tradition with many believers expect will begin in the Afghan-Pakistani borderlands. Filiu uncovers the role of apocalypse in Islam over the centuries, and highlights its extraordinary resurgence in recent decades. Identifying 1979 as a decisive year in the rise of contemporary millenarian speculation, he stresses the ease with which subsequent events in the Middle East have been incorporated into the intellectual universe of apocalyptic propagandists. WHEN BAMBOO BLOOM, An Anthropologist in Taliban’s Afghanistan by Patricia A. Omidian, Waveland Press, Inc.123pp. This work is a medical anthropologist’s highly personal ethnographic chronicle of time spent as an aid worker and community outreach trainer in Taliban –controlled Afghanistan. While managing to avoid notice by the Taliban, the author illustrates how Afghan people must negotiate between the dictates of their own culture and the intimidation of the Taliban, wondering what characteristic or trait they possess to cope with the erosion of honor and freedom. ETERNAL PERFORMANCE TA’ZIYEH AND OTHER SHIITE RITUALS , edited by Peter J. Chelkowski publish by Seagull Books , pp425. Over the centuries, Muharram observances have travelled far from their origins at Karbala. Muharram rituals have social, political, cultural, artistic and , of course ,religious significance for millions of observers. These rituals have crossed boundaries and cultures from Iran and Iraq to Lebanon, the Indian subcontinent, the USA and the Caribbean. THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT, A HISTORY by Ian J.Bickerton published by Reaktion Books Ltd. London, UK, 2009,pp244. Though more than sixty years have passed since the proclamation of the State of Israel , the impact of that epochal event continues to shape the political...