Suchergebnisse

It is a "well-known secret" in Israel that scholars of Middle Eastern studies are heavily involved with military intelligence: they serve their reserve duty there, provide research services for it, and when they are interviewed in the media, they speak with the authority of those "in the know." The fact that such relations exist, therefore, is well known and in itself is not the problem this article sets out to investigate. My question is rather about the causes and significance of this phenomenon: why did academics, who are supposedly committed to disinterested research, become involved in military intelligence work? And why did military intelligence, this most hardheaded and secretive of government agencies, come to draw upon the expertise of historians and philologists? Finally, what are the consequences of such "dangerous liaisons" between military intelligence and Middle Eastern studies?

Early days -- The war years -- In the Ottoman archives -- Cultural diplomacy -- Why study history? -- Episodes in an academic life -- Crossing the Atlantic -- The neighborhood -- The clash of civilizations -- Orientalism and the cult of right thinking -- Judgment in Paris -- Writing and rewriting history -- Politics and the Iraq War

American Academic Exchange with the Middle East through the Fulbright Program is nearly as old as the U.S. government fellowship program itself. Yet even now, after nearly four decades of exchange, there remain many obstacles to academic exchange with the Middle East. For example, during the past three years there has been a declining interest on the part of American scholars in Middle East Fulbright sojourns. This lack of interest is found not only among scholars in disciplines unrelated to the Middle East but among Middle East specialists as well. American scholars seem to look more toward the rest of the world than the Middle East when considering a Fulbright experience.

A concern on the part of Middle East specialists with an examination of political parties and groupings and related political processes represents a comparatively recent development. It is a development, of course, which has lagged behind the study of parties and political processes in the United States and Europe, although even there the subject largely was neglected until a quarter of a century ago.

Provides an up-to-date study of the life of George Strachan (1572-1635), early 17th century Scottish Humanist scholar, Orientalist and traveller.

Is The Cold War finally coming to an end, as some would have us believe? And if so, what does this mean for the Middle East? These are questions that will be with us for some time. They do not lend themselves to clear answers, but they nonetheless demand our attention.For students of the contemporary Middle East, these questions pose special analytical problems—how can one best assess the relationship between the area that we study and the broader currents of international politics? Middle East specialists are rightly skeptical of efforts to analyze their region of study from a "globalist" perspective. Most of us have little patience with theorizing that fails to take into account that which is distinctive in the cultures, politics, and societies of the Middle East. We have even less use for crude empiricism which tries to reduce the complexities of the Middle East to quantifiable events or entries in simplistic classification schemes.

Daniel Pipes has collected some of his sharpest and most prescient writings from the quarter century 1989-2014. In them, he addresses a range of current topics, from the origins of the civil war in Syria to denying the Islamic factor in terrorism, to the way to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Pipes pursues two themes in particular: the internal instability of Muslim-majority countries, in which nothing abides, and the expression of Muslims' drive to apply Islamic law. Pipes' interests concentrate on the Middle East as understood from a historical point of view and on the role of Islam in politics. Divided into five thematic sections, this work addresses the Arab-Israeli conflict, Middle Eastern politics, Islam in modern life, Islam in the West, and individuals connected to American Islam. Pipes' deep knowledge, gained over forty-five years of study, combined with incisive writing and a well-regarded courage to speak out on controversial topics make Nothing Abides a compelling read for Middle East specialists, students, and the interested public.

It is not easy to present a summary of Middle East studies in France. Traditionally located in several important institutions—Collège de France, School of Applied Higher Studies (EPHE), National School of Oriental Languages—they have burst out of these walls over the past two decades. Many courses on the Middle East are now given in the Universities of Paris and the provinces. The new organization of higher education created after the crisis of May 1968 was guided by a spirit of university autonomy and thus makes any general summary even more difficult. Several universities have often been created in the same city and specialists have been split up among them rather than remaining together.