Ithaca Press Research Articles

Sean L. Field, Courting Sanctity: Holy Women and the Capetians. Ithaca, NY, and London Cornell University Press, 2019, pp. 266

In Courting Sanctity, Sean Field delivers a comprehensible, and at times, remarkably complex portrait of the relationship between the French dynasty of the Capetians and female prophets and mystics of the mid-thirteenth to early fourteenth centuries. His argument and thus the purpose of the investigation are clearly established from the beginning: starting with King Louis IX (1214–1270), holy women were integral in establishing the sanctification of the crown, but as the monarchy grew in secular power or entered into periods of crisis, court officials started to target and to condemn these spiritual females as sorceresses or demonic threats.

The Charismatic Persona of Colonel Qaddafi

In any list of dictators and antagonists of the West the name of Libya’s Colonel Muammar Qaddafi will always rank highly as one of the most memorable, colourful and mercurial. The roles he played to his fellow Libyans, to regional groupings, to revolutionaries and to the West were complex and nuanced. These various roles developed over time but were all grounded in his self-belief as a messianic revolutionary figure. More importantly, these roles and behaviours that stemmed from them were instrumental in preserving Qaddafi’s rule and thwarting challenges to it. These facets of Qaddafi’s public self accord with the model of “persona” described by Marshall. Whilst the nature of political persona and celebrity in the Western world has been explored by several scholars (for example Street; Wilson), little work has been conducted on the use of persona by non-democratic leaders. This paper examines the aspects of persona exhibited by Colonel Qaddafi and applied during his tenure. In constructing his role as a revolutionary leader, Qaddafi was engaging in a form of public performance aimed at delivering himself to a wider audience. Whether at home or abroad, this persona served the purpose of helping the Libyan leader consolidate his power, stymie political opposition and export his revolutionary ideals.

Jerzy Zdanowski, Slavery and Manumission. British policy in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf in the first half of the 20th century, Ithaca Press, Reading 2013, ss. 474.

Jerzy Zdanowski, Slavery and Manumission. British policy in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf in the first half of the 20th century, Ithaca Press, Reading 2013, ss. 474.

Every Day, Every Hour by Nataa Dragni

Gathering the Tide: An Anthology of Contemporary Arabian Gulf Poetry Patty Paine, Jeff Lodge, & Sam Touati, eds. Ithaca Press Poets from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are represented in this ambitious anthology. “The unique voices of the poets collected here create a tapestry that stirs the heart and soul and offers insight into the rich culture and history of the region.” Andrew Delahunty & Sheila Dignen Oxford Dictionary of Reference and Allusion Oxford University Press This little paperback reference book is both useful and entertaining. It identifies over two thousand allusions found in literary and popular culture with quotations to illustrate proper usage. A well-organized thematic index completes the volume, simplifying the search for obscure terms. Opening the book at random can also be a satisfying afternoon’s diversion. Nota Bene tion that “our responsibility to others sometimes requires us to bury knowledge, even destroy it.” Of many successful stories in the volume, “The Animals at the Budapest Zoo” deserves to be ranked with major works in the genre. Confined to limited time and space, it foregrounds most effectively the moral and psychological strains imposed by the siege, describing the futile attempts of two surviving zookeepers to keep themselves and the animals alive in spite of deprivation of heat and food, shelling, and impromptu big-game hunts by Russian soldiers. One of the keepers becomes obsessed by ancient tales of metamorphosis, when the concept of the self did not exist, because in the present “having a mind was . . . a handicap.” His friend, asked in effect to feed him to the zoo’s lion so that he can metamorphose into the savage and mindless, hugs himself “as if in consolation for the emptiness of his stomach, for the delirium of this siege without end, the constant fear, the boredom, waiting on the clock, the slow erasure of affection, of the list of things he would not do.” The rhythm of the series, here and elsewhere one of Dobozy’s most effective stylistic devices, is not only compelling but encapsulates the structure of the story as a whole. And other strong passages, notably some of the concluding paragraphs, show that Dobozy’s style has attained the measured gravity and eloquence worthy of a mature artist. They also offer hope for future work from a writer who has not quite reached his mid-forties. Robert Murray Davis University of Oklahoma Nataša Dragnić. Every Day, Every Hour. Liesl Schillinger, tr. New York / London. Viking / Chatto & Windus. 2012. isbn 9780670023509 / 0701186944 Readers and foreign presses have embraced Every Day, Every Hour as an enchanting first novel. Alas, however , its fairy-tale romance collapses under the weight of stylistic and structural contrivance. The novel follows its ill-fated protagonists, Luka and Dora, from their births in a small coastal Croatian town until they reach forty-nine and forty-six, respectively. Aspiring artist Luka, five, and aspiring actress Dora, two (!), meet in kindergarten: Luka faints, Dora revives her “prince,” and voilà—inseparable soul mates. But Dora’s move to Paris with her parents four years later creates a void in Luka’s life and a powerful memory the younger Dora cannot access. Both mature: Luka turns pain into art in Zagreb while Dora, always may–june 2013 • 61 reviews “full of voices,” conquers the Parisian stage. Meeting accidentally at Luka’s first Parisian art show, they consummate their childhood love. But upon Luka’s return home to arrange their wedding, his Zagreb girlfriend, Klara, uses pregnancy to trap him in a wretched marriage, and he trades art for hotel work. The lovers’ lives thereafter intersect only at inopportune moments, assuring that love is repeatedly found and lost. The structure foreshadows and underscores their heartache. Their last meeting opens the novel, as Dora reveals that she has recently married and that her teenaged, buddingartist son is Luka’s. The penultimate chapter repeats that first scene verbatim , and the final chapter ends with their mantra—“What do we do now?” “Let’s get out of here.” But even though fate has given Luka an exit—he has learned that he did not father his first child with Klara— Dora is now married. One...

Book Review: Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Steven Wright (eds), Reform in the Middle East Oil Monarchies (Reading: Ithaca Press, 2008, 309 pp., £35 hbk)

Book Review: Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Steven Wright (eds), Reform in the Middle East Oil Monarchies (Reading: Ithaca Press, 2008, 309 pp., £35 hbk)

A Third Look at “Li Wa Zhuan”

Tang Studies 25 (2007) A THIRD LOOK AT "LI WA ZHUAN" WILLIAM H. NIENHAUSER, JR. UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN - MADISON "For in a sense all annotation is over annotation," Glen Dudbridge, ''ASecond Look at 'LiWa zhuan'" "Telling the story is responsive to truth, but it also creates truth" -Christopher J. Insole When I was first asked to write something for the twenty-fifth issue of Tang Studies, "Li Wa zhuan" *~i1' and Glen Dudbridge's seminal study of the talewhich appeared exactly twenty-five years ago-immediately came to mind. I have been reading, teaching and re-reading both the tale, and Dudbridge's study, in the twenty years since I discovered both. This paper began as an attempt to reassess Dudbridge's entire book, intending a more detailed look at the life and times of the author of the tale, Bo Xingjian B1TM (776-827), while also presenting an alternative allegorical target for the piece. These two goals, it soon became apparent, would require a longer study than the present circumstances allow.Thus this paper will focus on verifying Dudbridge's approach to "Li Wa zhuan," especially his second-level reading of the resonances and echoes found in the text. It will proceed (1) by reviewing the model for Dudbridge's readings, Frank Kermode's edition of The Tempest, (2) by discussing the audiences for the tale, (3) by supporting Dudbridge's approach through augmenting the number and nature of the resonances he has already pointed out, and (4) by suggesting a second, literary context for "Li Wa zhuan."l There is a long tradition of reexamining scholarship in China. Liu Zongyuan fPP*7C (773-819) wrote the "Fei Guoyu" ~F~§R (Argument against the Harangues of the Various States), a text which inspired three "Fei Fei Guoyu" ~F ~F~§-R (Argument against the Argument against the Harangues of the Various States) to counter his opinions.2 This, too, is a third look at an ancient text, the My thanks to Li He, Weijia Lu, and other members of my recent seminars, who contributed in various ways to this study. To Mei Ah Tan, Ying Qin and Ying Liu lowe an especial debt of gratitude for their varied assistance. I have Charles Hartman to thank for several insightful suggestions on the overall reading of the tale. 1 A reassessment is in part called for by the number of studies of "Li Wa zhuan" that have appeared since the publication of The Tale o/Ii wa (and even since ''A Second Look"). 2 The three "Fei 'Fei Guoyu'" ~F~F~~ were written by Liu Zhang ;U~ (ca. 1095-1177), Jiang 91 Nienhauser: A Third Look at "Li ~ zhuanJJ Li Wa tale. Although only one of several important Tang tales, Glen Dudbridge has made the story well known to Western students of Tang fiction, through both his monograph, The Tale of Ii \%, Study and Critical Edition of a Chinese Story from the Ninth Century,3 and his subsequent article, ''A Second Look at Ii \% zhuan."4 In his ''A Second Look" Dudbridge felt called upon to defend his method of providing "explanatory glosses" for the Western reader, although his notes are clearly in the tradition of Chinese exegetes who provided interlinear commentary in both verse and prose editions.5 Similarly, Dudbridge has credibly deflected claims of over annotation. This study proposes to carry Dudbridge's efforts a step further. But first to Shakespeare. THE TEMPESTAND RELATED TEXTS The Arden Shakespeare has now seen three editions of The Tempest. The first was by the eminent Shakespeare scholar, Morton Luce (1849-1943).6 Frank Kermode edited the second edition (1954). The third edition, edited by Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan, appeared in 1999. It is Kermode's exegesis that Dudbridge read and is thus that which concerns us, at least at the outset. In his lengthy "Introduction" Kermode considers the claims that the German drama Die Schone Sidea (xvi), may be a kind of ur- Tempest. Duanli 1Iftfffitt (late eleventh century), and Yu Pan J1i~ (fl. 1300), the younger brother ofYu Chi J1i~ (1272-1348). 3 London: Ithaca Press, 1983. 4 Originally published in Translating Chinese Literature, ed. Eugene Eoyang and Lin...

Elie Kedourie and the history of the Middle East

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes A. Toynbee, ‘Was Britain's Abdication Folly?’, The Round Table, April 1970, pp.219 – 28. Ibid., p.220. E. Kedourie, England and the Middle East, (hereafter EME) 2nd edn. (London: Mansell & Westview, Colorado, 1987), pp.1 – 7. E. Kedourie, ‘Colonel Lawrence and his Biographers’ in Islam in the Modern World (hereafter IMW), (London: Mansell, 1980), p.265. L. Hart, T.E. Lawrence (London: Jonathan Cape, 1934). IMW, pp.272 – 3. EME, pp.119 – 22. The Chatham House Version (hereafter CHV), new edn, (New Hampshire: University Press of New England for Brandeis University Press, 1984), pp.33 – 51. E. Kedourie, Arabic Political Memoirs (hereafter APM), (London: Frank Cass, 1974), p.235. EME, p.122. Ibid., p.131. Ibid., p.42. Ibid., p.57. David Garnett (ed.) The Letters of T.E. Lawrence (London: Jonathan Cape, 1938), p.282. EME, p.110. Subsequently, Kedourie briefly acknowledges the implications of Russia's withdrawal for the agreement. Ibid, p.134. EME, p.122. Cited in J. Marlowe, Late Victorian (London: 1967), p.165; see also P. Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, 1914 – 1921 (London: Ithaca Press, 1976), pp.20 – 41. G. Antonius, The Arab Awakening (hereafter AA) (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1938, reprinted 1945), p.248. B. Westrate, The Arab Bureau (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992); J. Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia (London: Heinemann, 1989). AA, pp.137 – 8. Ibid., p.169. E. Kedourie, In the Anglo-Arab Labyrinth (hereafter IAAL), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p.177. Ibid., p.109. McMahon made a link with the evacuation in a letter quoted, ibid, p.111. Further factors are mentioned in a note dated 28 April 1916 written by H.A. Grant, Foreign Secretary of the Government of India. While expressing extreme scepticism about the merits of Cairo's Arab policy, Grant conceded that at the time (presumably October, 1915) a threat to India would have existed had an Arab jihad been coupled with a general jihad in Persia and Afghanistan. (Chelmsford papers. Mss Eur. E. 264/2 [part 2], p.47. Ibid., p.120. Ibid., p.98. ‘In the Anglo-Arab Labyrinth: Genesis of a History’, in IMW, p.300. E. Marmorstein, ‘A Note on “Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo”’ in St Antony's Papers XI, 1961. It should be noted that the order in which the four towns are named in documents and other discussions changes repeatedly before and after McMahon's letter of 24 October. IAAL, pp.87 – 8. A.L. Tibawi, Anglo-Arab Relations and the Question of Palestine, 1914 – 1921 (London: Luzac, 1977), pp.77 – 8. IAAL, p.106. Tibawi, op.cit., pp.82 – 91. I. Friedman, The Question of Palestine (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973) discusses the same point but omits an important part of the quotation from McMahon's 26 October despatch and goes on to claim, without warranty, that the territory about which McMahon was doubtful in respect of French claims was Palestine. Wilson, op cit., p.213. Reprinted in CHV, pp.13 – 32. R. Sanders, The High Walls of Jerusalem, (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984), pp.248 – 55. Wilson, op cit., p.215. IAAL, p.318. IMW, p.313. CHV, p.ix. CHV, p.375. Ibid., p.388. Ibid., p.391. APM, p.275. Ibid., p.vii. See his essay on ‘The Kingdom of Iraq’ in CHV, p.262. IMW, 198. J. Darwin, Britain, Egypt and the Middle East (London: Macmillan, 1981). CHV, p.121. Ibid., p.136. M. Kramer, Islam Assembled (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp.86 – 105. Loraine's remark is quoted on p.105. ‘Great Britain and Palestine: the Turning Point’ in IMW, pp.93 – 170. Ibid., p.138. Ibid., p.128. Ibid., p.134. Palestine Partition Commission: Report, 1938. Cmd.5854. IMW, pp.239 – 48. Ibid., p.240. Ibid., p.241. Ibid., p.242. ‘The Arab-Israeli Conflict’, in APM, pp.219 – 28. ‘Religion and Politics’, CHV, p.318. ‘Arabs Ancient and Modern’, in APM, p.164. S.G. Haim (ed.), Arab Nationalism, an Anthology (Berkeley: University of Californa Press, 1962); Z.N. Zeine, The Emergence of Arab Nationalism (Beirut: Khayats, 1966); A. Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798 – 1939, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962); and C.E. Dawn, From Ottomanism to Arabism, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973). ‘The Impact of the Young Turk Revolution on the Arabic-Speaking Provinces of the Ottoman empire’ in APM. N. Keddie, Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972). The full biography appeared after Kedourie's book was published. CHV, pp.213 – 235. E. Kedourie, Nationalism, Fourth Expanded Edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), p.141. In M. Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p.166.

The Changing Approach to the Text: Iranian scholars and the Quran

My points of departure for this study are the following questions: how have Shiite scholars been reading the text that is, the Quranic text during the past 50 years? Is it possible that they were guided by a particular cognitive interest? Can it be assumed that they may have projected certain intentions onto the text? Is there a chance that the point of view chosen by them as interpreters has predetermined the outcome? And, last but not least: has the approach to the text changed since the revolution of 1979? I will argue that it has changed a lot. Having experienced a theocratic system some scholars intend to give the Quran another standing in life and society.

Balancing Acts: The Gulf States and Israel

The national interests of weak states are subject both to external pressures, applied by strong states, and internal pressures. It is assumed that due to their weakness, external demands have a gre...

Henner Furtig. Iran’s Rivalry with Saudi Arabia between the Gulf Wars. Reading, Ithaca Press, 2002, 288 p. (Durham Middle East Monographs series)

Alors que l’Iran et l’Arabie saoudite etaient les deux piliers de l’alliance avec les Etats-Unis avant la revolution islamique, les relations entre les deux Etats se sont transformees en hostilite apres la revolution islamique, l’Arabie soutenant activement l’Irak dans sa guerre de huit annees contre l’Iran. Les choses ont change ensuite. L’Irak etant marginalise apres la guerre de Koweit, Iran et Arabie se sont rapproches des le debut des annees 1990. Cette histoire diplomatique et politique...

KAMIL A. MAHDI, State and Agriculture in Iraq: Modern Development, Stagnation and the Impact of Oil (Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press, 2000). Pp. 396. $49.50 cloth

KAMIL A. MAHDI, State and Agriculture in Iraq: Modern Development, Stagnation and the Impact of Oil (Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press, 2000). Pp. 396. $49.50 cloth

KAMIL A. MAHDI, State and Agriculture in Iraq: Modern Development, Stagnation and the Impact of Oil (Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press, 2000). Pp. 396. $49.50 cloth

K<scp>AMIL</scp> A. M<scp>AHDI</scp>, <i>State and Agriculture in Iraq: Modern Development, Stagnation and the Impact of Oil</i> (Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press, 2000). Pp. 396. $49.50 cloth

The Muslim Brotherhood and the ‘Struggle for Syria’, 1947–1958 Between Accommodation and Ideology

Although Syria gained independence in 1946, its independence was initially nominal. In fact, Syria became a local theatre of the Cold War, and a place where competing Arab blocs vied for control of...

UWAIDAH M. AL JUHANY, Najd before the Salafi Reform Movement: Social, Political and Religious Conditions during the Three Centuries Preceding the Rise of the Saudi State (Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press in association with the King Abdul Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives, 2002). Pp. 223. $49.50 cloth

UWAIDAH M. AL JUHANY, Najd before the Salafi Reform Movement: Social, Political and Religious Conditions during the Three Centuries Preceding the Rise of the Saudi State (Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press in association with the King Abdul Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives, 2002). Pp. 223. $49.50 cloth - Volume 36 Issue 1

UWAIDAH M. AL JUHANY, Najd before the Salafi Reform Movement: Social, Political and Religious Conditions during the Three Centuries Preceding the Rise of the Saudi State (Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press in association with the King Abdul Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives, 2002). Pp. 223. $49.50 cloth

UWAIDAH M. AL JUHANY, Najd before the Salafi Reform Movement: Social, Political and Religious Conditions during the Three Centuries Preceding the Rise of the Saudi State (Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press in association with the King Abdul Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives, 2002). Pp. 223. $49.50 cloth

Napoleon in Egypt

Napoleon in Egypt. Edited by Irene A. Bierman. With an introduction by Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot. Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 2003. In association with Gustav E. von Grunembaum Center for Near Eastern Studies at University of California, Los Angeles, 2003. Pp. v, 189. $49.50/£29.95. This collection of ten essays considers significance of General Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition to and occupation of Egypt. Napoleon arrived in Egypt in 1798 after evading British fleet commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson. He defeated Ottoman and Mamluk forces and established, with varying degrees of success, a new political and economic administration. Napoleon also campaigned in Levant before returning to Egypt. In 1799, he left for France to pursue political ambitions and stranded his dwindling army, by then ravaged by war and disease. Residual French forces capitulated to British and Ottoman forces in 1801. The contributors to this book agree French ephemeral had important, if not profound, implications for Egypt and Middle East. Nelly Hanna views expedition as part of a long-term process in changing relationship Egypt and Europe. Egypt was a transit entrepot for coffee trade Hijaz and Europe. By French arrived, however, coffee trade had collapsed due to Antiguan competition. Furthermore, native textiles faced burgeoning British and European cheap imports. Geoffrey Symcox agrees with Edward Said that expedition acted as the formative moment for discourse of Orientalism (p. 13). His essay places expedition-a strategic gamble (p. 26)-in broader context of France's conflict with Great Britain. The attack was daring and risky and meant to threaten Britain's land links with India. Although Directory's geopolitical objectives were not attained, French resulted in two particular cultural consequences: (1) founding of Institut d'Egypte, and (2) confrontation Enlightenment and Islam. Stuart Harten provides an exceptional synthesis of Said's thought toward expedition-the enabling project for all subsequent Orientalist enterprises (p. 35). He also injects Henry Laurens's interpretation of ideological foundations of expedition by tracing its roots to discourse of Oriental Despotism' (p. 36). Harten points out that primary contributors of seminal Description de l'Egypte were engineers rather than Orientalist scholars. To Harten, French expedition appropriated Egypt politically and culturally, dispossessing native inhabitants of their very presence (p. 44). Juan R. I. Cole views French as perhaps first in a long line of liberal colonial adventures, of which Vietnam War is most famous in our time (or arguably, American of Iraq). What he calls also serve as binary relationships between Self and Other, civilization and barbarism, liberty and dominance, public and private, male and female, Great Powers diplomacy and local politics (p. 48). Cole uses memoirs to explore these contradictions and constructions. Nairy Hampikian examines mapping of Cairo and describes the drastic changes that took place in Cairo both during and after Napoleonic invasion (p. 70). Hampikian convincingly demonstrates not only that Description represented an Orientalist paradigm, but that its illustrations' efforts to see unseen (p. 74) are valuable for architectural and urban historians. Shmuel Moreh provides an Egyptian view of French invasion. The chief observers were 'Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti, Niqula Turk, and Hasan al-'Attar. …

The Three Environments of Middle East Foreign Policy Making and Relations with Europe

In the post-9/11 climate, the role of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) states in Europe’s regional security environment and international politics has become more than ever a focus for attention, but remains ill-understood. This book provides a framework for the analysis of Middle Eastern foreign policies in general, and for understanding these states’ relations with Europe in particular. The book fills a gap in the literature on Euro-Middle Eastern relations by adopting a south-to-north perspective, using the tools of Foreign Policy Analysis to examine the determinants of the foreign policies of the MENA states themselves: only thus can one hope to arrive at a genuine understanding of what underlies these states’ evolving policy orientations and behaviour towards Europe. The volume starts by laying out a conceptual framework for analysis, and examining the domestic, regional, and international environments that condition MENA foreign policies. Actual policy output is then systematically investigated through a wide range of country case studies ranging from the Maghreb and the Mashreq to the Gulf and Turkey. Europe is treated throughout both as a target of those foreign policies, and as part of the environment that shapes them. The result of a two-year project sponsored by the European University Institute’s Mediterranean Programme, the book helps bridge the divide between Middle East expertise and the discipline of International Relations. The systematic comparative analysis of MENA states’ foreign policy with special reference to Europe throws new light on questions about ‘Third World’ foreign policy.

The making of an Egyptian Arab Nationalist: the early years of Azzam Pasha, 1893–1936. By Ralph M. Coury. pp. viii, 528, appendix, bibliography, index. Reading, Ithaca Press, 1998. £35.00.

The making of an Egyptian Arab Nationalist: the early years of Azzam Pasha, 1893–1936. By Ralph M. Coury. pp. viii, 528, appendix, bibliography, index. Reading, Ithaca Press, 1998. £35.00. - Volume 10 Issue 1

The Near and Middle East - Derek Hopwood: Sexual encounters in the Middle East: the British, the French and the Arabs, v, 309 pp. Reading: Ithaca Press, 1999. £35.

The Near and Middle East - Derek Hopwood: Sexual encounters in the Middle East: the British, the French and the Arabs, v, 309 pp. Reading: Ithaca Press, 1999. £35.

The Near and Middle East - Maria Do Céu Pinto: Political Islam and the United States: a study of US policy towards Islamist movements in the Middle East. (Durham, Middle East Monographs Series.) ix, 340 pp. Reading: Ithaca Press, 1999. £35.

The Near and Middle East - Maria Do Céu Pinto: Political Islam and the United States: a study of US policy towards Islamist movements in the Middle East. (Durham, Middle East Monographs Series.) ix, 340 pp. Reading: Ithaca Press, 1999. £35.