Book Reviews

91 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXVI, No.2, Winter 2012 Book Reviews Edited by Nadia Barsoum South Asia, China, Turkey, and the Middle East LEBANON: A HISTORY600-2011 by William Harris published by Oxford University Press 2012, New York, NY 2012, pp. 360. Harris contends that Lebanon has not found a equilibrium and has not transcended its sects. In the early twenty-first century there is an uneasy duality: Shia have largely recovered the weight they possessed in the sixteenth century, but Christians, Sunnis and Druze are two thirds of the country. This book offers the readers a clear understanding of how modern Lebanon acquired its precarious social intricacy and its singular political character. THE RISE OF CHINA THE IMPACT ON SEMI-PERIPHERY AND PERIPHERY COUNTRIES edited by LiXing, Steen F. Christensen published by Aalborg University Press 2012. Pp.225. This study examines the rise of China has had a transformative impact on almost all areas of global political, economic and social life, and raises some very important questions: Will the rise of China lead to the sinicization of the international regime? Will China be a cooperative actor or a disruptive one? This book provides a framework to understand China’s reemergence in the nexus of historical, economic, political and world systems perspectives. MUSLIMS IN INDIAN CITIES: Trajectories of Marginalisation, edited by Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot, published by Columbia University Press 2012, Pp.400. This volume combines first hand testimony with sound critical analysis and follows urban Muslim life in eleven Indian cities, providing uncommon insight into a little-known but highly consequential subject. Numbering more 150 million, Muslim constitutes the largest minority in India, yet they suffer the most politically and socioeconomically. 92 ECLIPSE: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance by Arvin Subramanian, published by The Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington DC, 2011,. Pp216. Arvin analyses the effects of China exchange rate policy on its trading partners and examines the rise of China from the perspective of its impact on the world economic system . He explores this through the key concept of economic dominance, focusing on whether and how China might attain future dominance. PAKISTAN A HARD COUNTRY by Anatol Lieven published by Public Affairs in New York, NY,Pp.556. Lieven explores the history of Pakistan . Setting present structures and conflicts against the larger backdrop of Muslim history in South Asia, and paints a vivid portrait of the regions, ethnicities, and competing religious traditions that long predate the current state. The author sets Pakistan as a deeply flawed but nonetheless working system, with social, economic, religious and military structures that give it a far greater toughness and resilience than is usually assumed. ISLAM AND HUMAN RIGHTS: Tradition and Politics by Ann Elizabeth Mayer, published by Westview Press 2012, Pp.299. This work is a probing examination of how the Islamic tradition has been exploited for political ends by regimes and institutions seeking to legitimize policies inimical to human rights. This edition analyses recent critical issues, including the burgeoning pressures in the Middle East for human rights leading up to the Arab Spring; The ambitious campaign of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to influence the UN human rights system by forging alliances with non-Muslim states hostile to human rights. ISLAMIC ADMINISTRATION under Omar Ibn Al-Khattab by Farouk S. Majdalawi published by Majdalawi Masterpieces Publications, Amman, Jordan. This book is about the achievements in administration under Omar Ibn Al Khattab. The background of the work surveys preIslamic Arabs. The personality of Omar and the Islamic message came together over ten crucial years of the history of Islam to make of Omar one of the makers of the history of Islam AFTER BIN LADEN:Al-Qai’da, the Next Generation by Abdel Bari Atwan, published by Saqi Books, London, UK, Pp.300. Atwan examines Al-Qai’da after Bin Laden has expanded its reach by cementing new alliances and exploiting the opportunities regional turmoil; affords. The Arab Spring has opened new battlegrounds for Jihadists, particularly in Libya, the Sahel, Syria and Egypt. Atwan profiles the next generation of foot soldiers and leaders and explores the new methods they...