Because of this, ruling regimes will continue to depend upon repression to stay in power. Such a situation entrenches problems instead of solutions, fostering future crises." "In this climate, Western adventurism, as expressed by America's 2003 invasion of Iraq and its refusal to criticize even the worst excesses of Israeli colonialism, sets off dangerous sparks in perhaps the world's most volatile region."

"With over a decade of experience as an on-the-ground correspondent in the Middle East and North Africa, Huband probes the political cauldron of monarchy and military rule, Arab nationalism, and the challenge presented by Islamist radicals." Brutal Truths, Fragile Myths provides an in-depth portrait of a region at once resistant to change and in dire need of reform.

British journalist and former correspondent in the Middle East and North Africa, Huband offers an overview of the region. He discusses rule and misrule in the Arab World, culture an identity, Osama bin Laden and the Islamist challenge, the invasion of Iraq, human rights and the legacies of terror, Israel and Palestine, and American power. Published at twenty seven dollars.

From Publishers Weekly: "In these probing dispatches, Financial Times Cairo correspondent Huband examines how Islam has reasserted itself in global politics, presenting the views of political figures, dissidents and Muslim scholars in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia to show the evolution of the "Islamic Revival." In Algeria, a resurgent Islamist movement of anti-French intellectuals, the unemployed and militant veterans of Afghanistan's mujahideen attacks Algeria's political/military elite for perpetuating colonialism through its ties to French business interests. In Sudan, a nine-year experiment to build an Islamic theocratic state has brought stagnation to a country ravaged by a civil war that has claimed a million lives. In the patchwork of warring clans that Somalia comprises, armed Islamic groups vie for a role in government, claiming that only the implementation of Muhammad's original teachings will save the nation from further anarchy. Huband argues that contemporary militant Islam represents a historic phase of the evolving religion. Huband's emphasis is intentionally on the more radical, militant end of the spectrum, rather than on the mainstream, but his survey still subverts the conventional Western view of Islam as a homogenous movement intent upon returning to an idealized past.

 Basic Books 0-8133-2781-4 / 9780813327815
softcover Very Good Condition 

Price: 24.30 USD