New Books in English Bookshelf
The New Arab Media: Technology, Image and Perception [Hardcover]
Emma Murphy (Author), Mahjoob Zweiri (Editor)
Publisher: Ithaca Press (GB) (November 2010)
The New Arab Media: Technology, Image and Perception provides a valuable introduction and analysis of some of the most important issues surrounding the new media revolution in the Middle East, in particular examining the two Janus-like faces of the new media in the Middle East: its role in reflecting developments within the region as well as its function in projecting the Arab world outside of the Middle East.
Topics examined within the book include the impact of Al-Jazeera; implementation of the Internet in the region; use of the media for diplomacy and propaganda; image culture; use of the Internet by religious diasporas; ICTs and the Arab Public Sphere; the influence of satellite TV on Arab public opinion; and the explosion of local radio stations in Jordan.
Murder in the Tower of Happiness (Hardcover)
“When the first armchair smashed into the asphalt, Sergeant Ashmouni was at his usual spot on the median of the Nile Corniche, trapped by the road’s twin currents turbulently flowing forth to Maadi and back to Old Cairo. He was wiping the sweat away from his eyes with his worn out sleeve-and in the process adding a new stain to his white traffic-police uniform-when surprise from the thunderous impact catapulted him into the fast lane of the side of the road closest to the Nile.”
Thus opens this fast-paced city thriller laced with dry humor that takes us inside Borg al-Saada-’Tower of Happiness,’ one of the luxury high-rises planted like alien bodies amid the fields along the Nile south of Cairo-and inside the sordid lives and lavish lifestyles of its super-rich and famous denizens. The naked, strangled body of Ahlam, a beautiful young actress, is discovered in one of the elevators, and as the police investigation gets under way, we meet many of the tower’s strange characters: the owner’s agent, Kasib Bey, overweight, toupeed, and decked in gold chains; wealthy contractor Abd al-Tawab Mabruk Basha (Tutu Basha to his friends), insomniac since Ahlam’s murder; Abd al-Malak, a psychic with a Ph.D. in genetic engineering from MIT; Farah, his erstwhile sweetheart, who has become one of the very candy dolls she used to scorn; belly-dancer Lula Hamdi, who would be able to see Timbuktu if she stood on top of a pile of all her money; Madame Esmeralda, the society lady from Chile; and the homely Dr. Mahgub, somewhat less well off than his neighbors. And of course there is Antar-the naughty boy-who roams the tower, enters apartments, and overhears conversations, unsettling and exposing the decadent occupants and their relationships.
Book Reviews:
A rare thriller from the Arab world Lisa Kaaki
The End of Dreams in Murder in the Tower of Happiness by M M Tawfik Sally Bland
Bridging Al-Serenities [Paperback]
Richard Mc Sweeney (Author)
A delightful prose-poetic work which begins on the beautiful isle of Éire (Ireland) with the world of the invisible presenting itself in person to the world of the visible. The focus then shifts to the Middle East, to a mythical queendom set in pre-Qur'an, pre-Bible, pre-Torah times. Seekers of wisdom, beauty, and love; seekers of spiritual contentment will find this cultural bridge building work greatly to their liking. In particular, those who are attracted to the literary heritage of Éire; the literature of the Torah, the Bible, and the Qur'an, and the writings of Gibran, Rumi, and Hafiz as well as the playful philosophical gymnastics of the Chinese sage Chuang-Tzu will immediately recognize and know this work to be a gem-find of this globally maladministered age. A fragrant cornucopia of stories and narratives all richly and exquisitely seasoned with spiritual and philosophical elegance and eloquence. It is an attempt at cultural bridge building; connecting peoples and ideas.
Photography and Egypt (Reaktion Books - Exposures) [Paperback]
Maria Golia (Author)
Egypt immediately conjures images of the pyramids, the temples and the Sphinx in the desert. Early photographs of Egypt took these ancient monuments as their primary subjects, and these have remained hugely influential in constructing our view of the country. But while Egypt and its monuments have been regularly photographed by foreigners, little has been known about the early days of photography among Egyptians. Photography and Egypt examines both, considering images from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, including studio portraits, landscapes and photojournalism.
Two forces drove photography’s early development in Egypt: its link as an essential tool of archaeology and the accelerating effects of archaeological photographs on the burgeoning tourism industry. In this book, Maria Golia examines these twin drives, through the work of Europeans who travelled to Egypt as well as early Egyptian and Middle Eastern photographers. Golia examines how photography was also employed for propaganda purposes, including depictions of celebrated soldiers, workers and farmers; and how studio-based photography was used to portray the growing Egyptian middle class. Today’s young photographic artists, Golia reveals, use the medium to celebrate everyday life and to indict political and social conditions, with photography bearing witness to history––as well as helping to shape it.
Illustrated with a rich, sometimes surprising variety of images, many published for the first time in the West, Photography and Egypt is the first book to relate the story of Egypt’s rapport with photography in one concise and highly readable account.
Counterpoints: Edward Said's Legacy [Hardcover]
May Telmissany (Author, Editor), Stephanie Tara Schwartz (Author, Editor)
Revolving around the theme of 'counterpoint' extensively used by Edward Said as the interplay of diverse ideas and discrepant experiences, this book aims to explore Said's contribution to the fields of comparative literature, literary criticism, postcolonial theory, exilic and transnational studies, and socio-political thought among many others. Overshadowed by his legitimate political positions in support to the Palestinian cause and at odds with Islamophobic hostilities, Said's intellectual achievements in the fields of humanities and philosophical thinking should equally be acknowledged and celebrated. Said articulates his notion of counterpoints through a vivid description of the composition of Western classical music. In the counterpoint of Western classical music, various themes play off one another, with only a provisional privilege being given to any particular one; yet in the resulting polyphony there is concert and order, an organized interplay that derives from the themes, not from a rigorous melodic or formal principle outside the work. This book pays tribute to Said's contrapuntal methodology as well as to his academic and humanistic legacy.
NATO and the Middle East: The Geopolitical Context Post-9/11 (Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics)
Mohammed Moustafa Orfy (Author)
Despite having been active in the region since the mid-1990s, the role of NATO in the Middle East has attracted particular attention since the events of 11th September 2001. This book analyses the limits of NATO’s role in the Middle East region and examines whether or not the Alliance is able to help in improving the fragile regional security environment through cooperative links with select Middle Eastern partners.
The author reviews the strategic importance of the region from a Western perspective and why it has become a source of instability in world politics, looks at US and international initiatives to counteract this instability, and charts the development of NATO in this context. He also examines NATO’s role with regard to two pressing Middle Eastern crises, Iraq and Darfur, assessing whether or not this role has been consistent with, if not an expression of, US strategic interests.
A comprehensive examination of the impacts of 9-11 events on world security and the development of NATO’s role in the Middle East, this book will be an important addition to the existing literature on security and strategic affairs, US foreign policy, Middle Eastern politics, European politics, and terrorism studies.
Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, Vol. 3: Conflict without End? [Paperback]
Alan Hart (Author) Clarity Press
This is the third volume in the series ZIONISM, THE REAL ENEMY OF THE JEWS, an epic journey through the propaganda lies and the documented truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel. Conflict Without End? takes the story from the 1967 war and the creation of a Greater Israel right up to the present and the question: Will President Obama be allowed to deliver an acceptable amount of justice for the Palestinians in order to achieve peace for all—and if he can’t deliver, is a final round of Zionist ethnic cleansing inevitable?
The compromising of Security Council integrity, author Alan Hart argues, is the key to understanding everything that has happened since the 1967 war. By allowing Israel to violate international law and settle the Occupied Territories, the major powers, led by America, effectively created two sets of rules for the behaviour of nations—one for all the nations of the world minus Israel and the other exclusively for it.
Hart enables readers to grasp how PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat risked everything, including his life, to persuade first his leadership colleagues and then his people to accept his policy of compromise and peace on terms which any rational government and people in Israel would have accepted with relief.
This third volume also includes insights Hart gained while acting as the linkman in a secret exploratory dialogue between Arafat and Israel’s Shimon Peres who, at the time, was the leader of the main opposition Labour Party, hoping to deny the Likud’s Menachem Begin a second term in office. The story of this mediation effort and of Sharon’s blood oath reveals why making peace may be a mission impossible for any Israeli leader, without sufficient outside pressure.
Only an American President, Hart concludes, has the leverage required to cause enough Israelis to be serious about peace on terms most Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept. In an Epilogue titled “Is Peace Possible?” Hart suggests the changes that must be made in America if any occupant of the White House is ever to be free to make the peace.
