Dimitri’s Reviews > A History of the Modern Middle East > Status Update

Dimitri
is on page 336 of 640
Armstrong walks on the moon but Arabs are in a state of gloom: joint defeat in the Six Days war against Israel, the bipolar seductions of the Cold War and the death of Nasser damage the credibility of pan-Arabism and the post-colonial states whose artificial nature belies nationalism.
— Jun 05, 2016 12:29PM
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Dimitri’s Previous Updates

Dimitri
is on page 430 of 640
Asad Sr. was already facing islamic rebellion in the '70s. Feels proto-ISIS to me !
— Jun 07, 2016 02:24AM

Dimitri
is on page 208 of 640
One key difference between the developping nation-states of the Middle East after WWI was whether the rulers incorporated Islamic values into their socio-economic programmes (Saudi Arabia, Egypt), or tried to build a new nationalism on secular grounds (Turkey, Iran). However, neither course was a guarantee for popular support.
— Jun 03, 2016 04:00AM

Dimitri
is on page 187 of 640
When I read bits like the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt having moderately progressive origins in the '30s, I miss the days where Kennedy would hand his advisors copies of "The Guns of August" and make them think twice about going to global war over the Cuban missile crisis . Politicians don't read enough history. Especially about what lies outside "the Western World" in any definition.
— Jun 01, 2016 02:49AM