Book Reviews

103 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXVII, No.1, Fall 2013 Book Reviews Edited by Nadia Barsoum South Asia, Turkey and the Middle East NEWS MEDIA IN THE ARAB WORLD: A Study of 10 Arabs and Muslim countries edited by Barrie Gunter& Roger Dickinson, published by Bloomsbury, New York 2013, pp.199. This book examines the role of newspapers and television in news provision and the impact of new media developments. Most especially the emergence of the internet as a platform for news distribution and of international satellite television channels such as Al Jazeera. AL-SHABAAB IN SOMALIA: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group, 2005-2012 by Stig Jarle Hansen, published by Oxford University Press 2013, pp.208. Hansen portrays Shabaab as hybrid Islamist organization that combines a strong streak of Somali nationalism with the rhetorical obligations of international jihadism, thereby attracting a significant number of foreign fighters to its ranks. Both these strands of Shabaab have been inadvertently boosted by Ethiopian, American and African Union attempts to defeat it militarily, all of which have failed. THE TWO STATES SOLUTION: The UN Partition Resolution of Mandatory Palestine, Analysis and Sources, edited by Ruth Gavison, published by Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013, pp.330. This volume is a collection of essays from leading scholars analyzing the historical context of UN Resolution181, the decision to partition Palestine into two states on November 29, 1947, including the positions and internal debates of the Jewish and Arab parties and the international community. BLAIR, LABOUR AND PALESTINE: CONFLICTING VIEWS ON MIDDLE EAST PEACE AFTER 9/11 by Toby Green, published by Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013, pp.298. Based on interviews and on previously unseen documents, this case study shows how the distinctive world view of a political leader defined foreign policy by shaping Britain’s response to Islamist violence and its interconnected approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 104 CONVERSION AND APOSTASY IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE by Selim Deringil, published by Cambridge University Press 2012, pp.281. The focus of this book, traditional religious structures crumbled as the empire itself began to fall apart. This book tells the story of the struggle for the bodies and the souls of people, waged between the Ottoman state, the Great Powers, and a multitude of evangelical organizations . Many of the stories shed light on current flash-points in the Arab world and the Balkans, offering alternative perspectives on National and religious identity and the interconnections between the two. TRACKING MODERNITY: India’s Railway and the Culture of Mobility by Marian Aguiar, Published by Minnesota University Press 2007, pp.226. The railway has been one of India’s most potent emblems of modern life. TRADITION AND MODERNITY: Christian and Muslim Perspectives edited by David Marshall, published by Georgetown University Press, Washington DC May 2010, pp.236. This work focuses on how Christians and Muslim connect their traditions to modernity, looking especially at understandings of history, changing patterns of authority, and approaches to freedom. The volume includes a selection of relevant texts from 19thand 20th century thinkers, from John Henry Newman to Tariq Ramadan, accompanied by illuminating commentaries. BECOMING TURKISH: Nationalist Reforms and Cultural Negotiations in Early Republican Turkey (1923-1945) by Hale Yilmaz, published by Syracuse University Press 2013, pp.328. Yilmaz deepens our understanding of the modernist nation-building processes in post-Ottoman Turkey through a rare perspective that social and cultural dimensions and everyday negotiations of the Kemalist reforms. She highlights relevance of class gender, location, and urban and rural differences while also revealing the importance of non-ideological social and psychological factors such childhood and generations. RELIGION AND POLITICS IN THE MIDDLE EAST: Identity, Ideology, Institutions, and Attitudes by Robert D. Lee, published by West View Press, Boulder Colorado, 2013. Pp.360. This book analyzes the relationship between religion and politics using four different indicators: national identity, ideology, institutions and attitudes in political culture. Lee compared study of five countries- Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. 105 THE UNSEEN WAR; Allied Air Power and the Takedown of Saddam Hussein by Benjamin S. Lambeth, published by the Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, pp.435. This volume offers a comprehensive assessment of the...