Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East

by Edmund Burke III (Editor), David N. Yaghoubian

Until the 1993 first edition of this book, one thing had been missing in Middle Eastern history--depiction of the lives of ordinary Middle Eastern men and women, peasants, villagers, pastoralists, and urbanites. Now updated and revised, the second edition has added six new portraits of individuals set in the contemporary period. It features twenty-four brief biographies drawn from throughout the Middle East--from Morocco to Afghanistan--in which the reader is provided with vantage points from which to understand modern Middle Eastern history "from the bottom up." Spanning the past 160-plus years and reflecting important transformations, these stories challenge elite-centered accounts of what has occurred in the Middle East and illuminate the previously hidden corners of a largely unrecorded world.

Genres: History, Middle East, Nonfiction, Social Science

448 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1992

Reviews

[Acaerounkr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prof. Burke began every session of our Modern Middle East course by playing youtube videos and internet radio of the latest Arabic rap, hip hop, and dance electonica. It was wholly unexpected for a freshman at university, but the retired Terry Burke truly understood the modern in modern mid east. His collection of biographies are rather fascinating; within half a generation TE Lawrence's Saudi camelboy frontier became the skyscrapers, fancy cars, and oil-pipes of Dubai. A leaping transition that left many contemporary individuals disorientated and longing for their fleeting traditional past.

[Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great! A compilation of work by many it gives you insight into cultures of the middle east and north africa. Some you've probably never heard of.

[Gaby Hernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly eye opening to the steady de-evolution and crumble of women's status and rights in the middle east

[Thomas Bundy]

Generally, I am not a fan of histories of unimportant people, but this one is not a total waste of time.