The Story
How the conflict between political Islamists and secularleaning nationalists has shaped the history of the modern Middle EastIn 2013, just two years after the popular overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian military ousted the countrys first democratically elected presidentMohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhoodand subsequently led a brutal repression of the Islamist group. These bloody events echoed an older political rift in Egypt and the Middle East: the splitting of nationalists and Islamists during the rule of Egyptian president and Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. In Making the Arab World, Fawaz Gerges, one of the worlds leading authorities on the Middle East, tells how the clash between panArab nationalism and panIslamism has shaped the history of the region from the 1920s to the present.Gerges tells this story through an unprecedented dual biography of Nasser and another of the twentiethcentury Arab worlds most influential figuresSayyid Qutb, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood and the father of many branches of radical political Islam. Their deeply intertwined lives embody and dramatize the divide between Arabism and Islamism. Yet, as Gerges shows, beyond the ideological and existential rhetoric, this is a struggle over the state, its role, and its power.Based on a decade of research, including indepth interviews with many leading figures in the story, Making the Arab World is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the roots of the turmoil engulfing the Middle East, from civil wars to the rise of AlQaeda and ISIS.
Description
How the conflict between political Islamists and secularleaning nationalists has shaped the history of the modern Middle EastIn 2013, just two years after the popular overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian military ousted the countrys first democratically elected presidentMohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhoodand subsequently led a brutal repression of the Islamist group. These bloody events echoed an older political rift in Egypt and the Middle East: the splitting of nationalists and Islamists during the rule of Egyptian president and Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. In Making the Arab World, Fawaz Gerges, one of the worlds leading authorities on the Middle East, tells how the clash between panArab nationalism and panIslamism has shaped the history of the region from the 1920s to the present.Gerges tells this story through an unprecedented dual biography of Nasser and another of the twentiethcentury Arab worlds most influential figuresSayyid Qutb, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood and the father of many branches of radical political Islam. Their deeply intertwined lives embody and dramatize the divide between Arabism and Islamism. Yet, as Gerges shows, beyond the ideological and existential rhetoric, this is a struggle over the state, its role, and its power.Based on a decade of research, including indepth interviews with many leading figures in the story, Making the Arab World is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the roots of the turmoil engulfing the Middle East, from civil wars to the rise of AlQaeda and ISIS.
