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Acknowledgments
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Acknowledgments This book is based on almost sixteen years of research, and I therefore owe thanks to many people and to many organizations that made all the field research possible. Some of the earliest interviews for this project were conducted in 1992 and 1993, when I was Fulbright Scholar based at the Center for Strategic Studies (CSS) at the University of Jordan. I thank the Fulbright Commission and the Institute for International Education as well as all my colleagues and friends at the CSS, especially the Center’s long-time director , Dr. Mustafa Hamarneh, who helped arrange the first interview in 1992, which soon led to an avalanche of other interviews. I later received a fellowship from the United States Institute for Peace (USIP), which allowed me to continue the research and publish initial findings in various journals and in book chapters. I am thankful that I have been able to return routinely to Jordan with the help of funding from both Mary Washington College and, more recently, the Office of International Programs at Appalachian State University. I also thank Christine Moore and the Jordan Tourism Board for allowing me to join a group of journalism professors and students from the University of South Carolina as they toured the kingdom. Since my many trips to Jordan have always focused on research, it was actually especially interesting and enlightening to view the kingdom from a media perspective and to once again tour Jordan’s many sites for the first time in many years. I have documented in the endnotes and bibliography some of the many political officials who were willing to give me their time and expertise on all matters relating to Jordanian domestic and foreign policy. I am thankful to all who consented to be interviewed (including the many who preferred not to go on record), especially since I was so often welcomed not only in offices in ministries and parliament, but also in homes. In addition to my fascination with Jordanian and inter-Arab politics, I am also continually drawn back to Jordan by the openness, kindness, and generosity of the Jordanian people. Since my first arrival in Jordan in the summer of 1989, I am indebted to countless Jordanians, from all walks of life, who have continued to make Jordan feel like a second home to me. As the documentation for this book makes clear, I am also indebted to the excellent research of several scholars on whose expertise I have often relied. x / Acknowledgments Laurie Brand, for example, remains in my view the dean of Jordanian studies , and everyone who has worked on Jordanian domestic or international politics owes her a great deal. I have been especially fortunate to draw on the insights of the so-called Jordan mafia—Marc Lynch and Jillian Schwedler— whose expertise I value, and whose friendship is more important to me than I can possibly say. Within Jordan, there are several scholars and activists who have tolerated no end of questions and political discussions with grace, insight, and humor. Among these, I especially thank (in alphabetical order), Hasan al-Barari, Fares Braizat, Mustafa Hamarneh, Sa'ida Kilani, Muhammad al-Masri, and Ayman Safadi. In addition to drawing on the excellent research of the Center for Strategic Studies, I have also drawn extensively on the fine work of the al-Urdun al-Jadid Research Center, and therefore thank its director, Dr. Hani Hourani, and his excellent and dedicated staff. In the United States, I also thank Merissa Khurma, Press Attaché of the Jordanian Embassy and the Jordan Information Bureau, for her kindness and help. This book has benefitted from the exacting analyses of two anonymous reviewers, whose very different additions, objections, and modifications were indeed difficult to reconcile at times, but which have nonetheless made the final product a much better book. I am thankful to Katy Godwin, for helping to rework the entire bibliography, and to several others whose insights over the years have helped to revise and refine this project, including Herbert Bodman, Timothy McKeown, Eric Mlyn, Bruce Kuniholm, Glenn H. Snyder, and Chris Toensing. I also thank my editor, Amy Gorelick— for her support, patience, and encouragement in bringing this project to fruition—and also Susan Albury and Kirsten Russell for excellent copy-editing and helping to make the overall manuscript clearer and a better read. Despite all the thanks to the many people and institutions noted above, all errors of interpretation are, of course, entirely my own. Finally, I...