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  • Recent Publications
  • Charles Berdahl, Ricky Chen, Jordan Davis, and Daniel Wilkofsky

Afghanistan

The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan, by Bing West. New York: Random House, 2011. 336 pages. $28.

The US's goals and strategies in the war in Afghanistan have evolved drastically in the 11 years since the start of the conflict. These changes reflect the strategic differences between the two presidents and six generals who have managed the US's involvement in the country. In this contentious, strategic struggle, Marine and former Assistant Secretary of State Bing West offers another vision for the US's future role in Afghanistan. From his experiences embedded with various units around Afghanistan, West crafts a narrative to transport the reader to the front-lines of the conflict. In this narrative, he claims that as long as US forces continue to fight, Afghan troops will not take full initiative in the struggle against the Taliban. However, the Afghan troops will disintegrate without a continued US presence. West weaves his proposed strategy into the narrative, arguing for a massive reduction in the number of US forces on the ground and a simultaneous increase in the number of military advisors to strengthen the capacity of the Afghan army. With such a strategy, West argues, the US may avoid losing a war that cannot be won. (CB)

Egypt

Coptic Christianity in Ottoman Egypt, by Febe Armanios. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011. 272 pages. $74.

The rule of the Mamluks in Egypt from the 13th to the 16th century left Coptic Christians and other non-Muslim minorities in a state of disarray and weakness. Mamluk policies marginalized the civil and religious standings of non-Muslims, who were often the victims of violent attacks and harassment. Febe Armanios analyzes manuscripts from contemporaneous Coptic archives to explore how the weakened position of the Copts transformed as the Mamluk era gave way to the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. Armanios examines how Copts relied on religious traditions and frameworks to craft an individual identity in an Islamic-dominated empire. The author uses the archival evidence to discuss how Copts operated within Muslim political, military, and religious institutions in order to survive as a religious community. (CB)

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Our Way to Fight: Israeli and Palestinian Activists for Peace, by Michael Riordon. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2011. 256 pages. $16.95.

Michael Riordon, Canadian writer and award-winning documentary filmmaker, provides a fresh perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by exploring the stories of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists. He writes on his travels in the region and his interactions with peace workers on both sides of the fence, who refuse to see the other side as the enemy, as dictated by conventional historical narratives. A colorful variety of activists are cataloged in Riordon's book, among them Mustafa Staiti, Palestinian film-maker at the Freedom Theatre in the Jenin Refugee Camp, and Meir Margalit, co-founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. (DW)

Proust Among the Nations: From Dreyfus to the Middle East, by Jacqueline Rose. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012. 256 pages. $35.

More than a century later, the memory of the Dreyfus affair continues to resonate in discussions of identity and nationalism, most profoundly in Europe. Drawing on the intellectual frameworks of Proust and Freud, Jacqueline Rose takes up the affair and applies it to the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict. She discusses how shifting identities at the point of cultural contact between Europe and Palestine helped to shape the conflict into what it is today. Understanding those identities, through an analysis of art, literature, and [End Page 563] film from artists such as Elias Khoury, Yehuda Amichai, Mahmoud Darwish, and Esther Shalev, can present new ways to think about the origins and future of violence between peoples. (CB)

Economic Conditions

First Principles of Islamic Economics, by Sayyid 'Abul A'la Mawdudi. Leicestershire, UK: The Islamic Foundation, 2011. 328 pages. $28.95.

A fundamental concept underpinning modern economics is the idea of tradeoffs. Among the most contested tradeoffs in today's economic policy discussions is between efficiency and equality in the marketplace; efficiency determines the...

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