A SCHOLARLY BOOK REPOSITORY530 start with M start with M
A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year
In the century since the Muslim Brotherhood first emerged in Egypt, its idea of “the West” has remained a key driver of its behavior. From its founding, the Brotherhood stood opposed to the British Empire and Western cultural influence. Its leaders hoped to create more pristine, authentically Islamic societies. As British power gave way to American, the Brotherhood oscillated between anxiety about the West and the need to engage with it, while American and British officials struggled to understand the group, unsure whether to shun or embrace it.
The Muslim Brotherhood and the West offers the first comprehensive history of the relationship between the world’s largest Islamist movement and the powers that have dominated the Middle East for the past hundred years. Drawing on extensive archival research in London and Washington and the Brotherhood’s writings in Arabic and English, Martyn Frampton reveals the history of this charged relationship down to the eve of the Arab Spring. What emerges is an authoritative account of a story that is crucial to understanding one of the world’s most turbulent regions.
“Rigorous yet absorbing…Fills a crucial gap in the literature and will be essential reading not just for scholars, but for anyone seeking to understand the ever-problematic relationship between religion and politics in today’s Middle East.”
—Financial Times
“Breaks new ground by examining the links between the Egyptian Brotherhood’s relations with Britain and…the United States.”
—Times Literary Supplement
An estimated twenty million Muslims now reside in Europe, mostly as a result of large-scale postwar immigration. In The Muslim Question in Europe, Peter O’Brien challenges the popular notion that the hostilities concerning immigration—which continues to provoke debates about citizenship, headscarves, secularism, and terrorism—are a clash between “Islam and the West.” Rather, he explains, the vehement controversies surrounding European Muslims are better understood as persistent, unresolved intra-European tensions.
O’Brien contends that the best way to understand the politics of state accommodation of European Muslims is through the lens of three competing political ideologies: liberalism, nationalism, and postmodernism. These three broadly understood philosophical traditions represent the most influential normative forces in the politics of immigration in Europe today. He concludes that Muslim Europeans do not represent a monolithic anti-Western bloc within Europe. Although they vehemently disagree among themselves, it is along the same basic liberal, nationalist, and postmodern contours as non-Muslim Europeans.
Pakistan, founded less than a decade after a homeland for India’s Muslims was proposed, is both the embodiment of national ambitions fulfilled and, in the eyes of many observers, a failed state. Muslim Zion cuts to the core of the geopolitical paradoxes entangling Pakistan to argue that India’s rival has never been a nation-state in the conventional sense. Pakistan is instead a distinct type of political geography, ungrounded in the historic connections of lands and peoples, whose context is provided by the settler states of the New World but whose closest ideological parallel is the state of Israel.
A year before the 1948 establishment of Israel, Pakistan was founded on a philosophy that accords with Zionism in surprising ways. Faisal Devji understands Zion as a political form rather than a holy land, one that rejects hereditary linkages between ethnicity and soil in favor of membership based on nothing but an idea of belonging. Like Israel, Pakistan came into being through the migration of a minority population, inhabiting a vast subcontinent, who abandoned old lands in which they feared persecution to settle in a new homeland. Just as Israel is the world’s sole Jewish state, Pakistan is the only country to be established in the name of Islam.
Revealing how Pakistan’s troubled present continues to be shaped by its past, Muslim Zion is a penetrating critique of what comes of founding a country on an unresolved desire both to join and reject the world of modern nation-states.
Muslims in a Post-9/11 America examines how public fears about Muslims in the United States compare with the reality of American Muslims’ attitudes on a range of relevant issues. While most research on Muslim Americans focuses on Arab Muslims, a quarter of the Muslim American population, Rachel Gillum includes perspectives of Muslims from various ethnic and national communities—from African Americans to those of Pakistani, Iranian, or Eastern European descent. Using interviews and one of the largest nationwide surveys of Muslim Americans to date, Gillum examines more than three generations of Muslim American immigrants to assess how segments of the Muslim American community are integrating into the U.S. social fabric, and how they respond to post-9/11 policy changes. Gillum’s findings challenge perceptions of Muslims as a homogeneous, isolated, un-American, and potentially violent segment of the U.S. population.
Despite these realities, negative political rhetoric around Muslim Americans persists. The findings suggest that the policies designed to keep America safe from terrorist attacks may have eroded one of law enforcement’s greatest assets in the fight against violent extremism—a relationship of trust and goodwill between the Muslim American community and the U.S. government. Gillum argues for policies and law enforcement tactics that will bring nuanced understandings of this diverse category of Americans and build trust, rather than alienate Muslim communities.
In Muslims of Metropolis, Kavitha Rajagopalan takes a much needed step in personalizing and humanizing our understanding of the Muslim diaspora. Tracing the stories of three very different families-a Palestinian family moving to London, a Kurdish family moving to Berlin, and a Bangladeshi family moving to New York-she reveals a level of complexity and nuance that is seldom considered. Through their voices and in their words, Rajagopalan describes what prompted these families to leave home, what challenges they faced in adjusting to their new lives, and how they came to view their place in society. Interviews with community leaders, social justice organizations, and with academics and political experts in each of the countries add additional layers of insight to how broad political issues, like nationalist conflict, immigration reform, and antiterrorism strategies affect the lives of Muslims who have migrated in search of economic stability and personal happiness.
Although recent thinking about immigration policy in the United States and Europe emphasizes the importance of long-term integration, a global attitude that continues to sensationalize divisions between Muslim and other communities thwarts this possibility. Integration cannot occur with policy solutions alone-people must feel that they belong to a larger society. Whether read as simple stories or broader narratives, the voices in this revealing book are among the many speaking against generalization, prejudice, and fear that has so far surrounded Muslims living in the West.
Kendhammer argues that despite Nigeria’s struggles with jihadist insurgency, its recent history is really one of tenuous and fragile reconciliation between mass democratic aspirations and concerted popular efforts to preserve Islamic values in government and law. Combining an innovative analysis of Nigeria’s Islamic and political history with visits to the living rooms of working families, he sketches how this reconciliation has been constructed in the conversations, debates, and everyday experiences of Nigerian Muslims. In doing so, he uncovers valuable new lessons—ones rooted in the real politics of ordinary life—for how democracy might work alongside the legal recognition of Islamic values, a question that extends far beyond Nigeria and into the Muslim world at large.
How capitalism is reconfiguring the very texture of life
Mutant Ecologies traces the spinning of new synthetic threads into the web of life. It is a critical cartography of the shifting landscapes of capital accumulation conjured by recent developments in genomic science, genome editing, and the biotech industry.
CRISPR crops, fast-growing salmons, heat-resistant Slick™ cows, Friendly™ Mosquitoes, humanized mice, pigs growing human organs – these are but a few of the dazzling new life-forms that have recently emerged from corporate and university laboratories around the world, all promising to lubricate the circuits of capital accumulation in distinct ways. The deliberate induction of genetic mutations is increasingly central to business operations in a number of sectors, from agriculture to pharmaceuticals.
While the Nobel Committee recently proclaimed the life sciences to have entered 'a new epoch', the authors show how these technological innovations continue to operate within a socio-historical context defined by the iron rules of capitalist competition and exploitation. Capital no longer contents itself by simply appropriating the living bodies of plants and animals. It purposefully designs its internal metabolism, and in that way, it redesigns the countless living vectors that constitute the global biosphere. It is driving a biological revolution, which will ripple through the everyday lives of people everywhere.
The public culture of the receiving society and the dominant understanding of belonging and political membership can influence the social participation of immigrants as much as immigration law. However, current discussions of integration focus primarily on the distribution of rights and neglect the role of tacit knowledge. Through a systematical and philosophical analysis of identity’s role in policymaking, governance, and social practice, Bodi Wang shows how a one-sided understanding of integration resembles “assimilation” and why integration should be expected from locals as well. This argument weaves together extensive findings in sociology, history, critical race theory, and Chinese philosophy with ethics and migration studies.
McGovern's candidacy signified a passing of the torch within Christian social justice. He initially allied with the ecumenical movement and the mainline Protestant churches during a time when these institutions worked easily with liberal statesmen. But the senator also galvanized a dynamic movement of evangelicals rooted in the New Left, who would dominate subsequent progressive religious activism as the mainline entered a period of decline. My Brother's Keeper argues for the influential, and often unwitting, role McGovern played in fomenting a "Religious Left" in 1970s America, a movement that continues to this day. It joins a growing body of scholarship that complicates the dominant narrative of that era's conservative Christianity.
Gaza is the frontline in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and rarely out of the news, this book explores the daily lives of the people in the region, giving us an insight into what is at risk in each round of violence.
Ramzy Baroud tells his father's fascinating story. Driven out of his village to a refugee camp, he took up arms and fought the occupation at the same time raising a family and trying to do the best for his children. Baroud's vivid and honest account reveals the complex human beings; revolutionaries, great moms and dads, lovers, and comedians that make Gaza so much more than just a disputed territory.
“Lots of Romanians, in my day, dreamed of France; not many got there,” writes the author in his introduction. “Fortuitousness, contingency, and sheer good luck made me fall into France, just as one falls into love.” Fifty years after reaching France, by way of school in England, Eugen Weber presents a series of illuminations on the country he loves, and whose civilization he has made the center of his life's work as an interpreter of European history, subspecialty France.
My France focuses on some of the most intriguing aspects of French life: polities, myths, personalities, public problems, actions, conflicts. The topics Weber treats range from sports to religion, and include comments on folklore, peasant politicization, national socialism, the nature of the French right, antisemitism, and famous Frenchmen such as Pierre de Coubertin, Maurice Barres, and Marc Bloch. In every chapter he questions established assumptions, asks if things are quite as they are taken to be, and points out links between apparently unrelated doings (literature and private income, religion and superstition, fairy tales and everyday life). Every essay reflects his unique insight and is enlivened by his witty and graceful style, making My France irresistible not only to students of modern European history, but also to Francophiles and pundits of Europe everywhere.
Andrade first came to Washington as ambassador in 1944, representing a young revolutionary government determined to check the power of the Bolivian tin barons who had dominated the country for decades. After his government was overthrown, he spent six years in exile, and returned to Washington when the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario resumed power in 1952. His deep understanding of Washington's massive political and bureaucratic establishment, combined with his renowned charm, resourcefulness, and perseverance, gave him the ability to negotiate massive economic and military aid for the development of the country. It also allows him to present a candid, knowledgeable inside view of U.S.-Bolivian relations through these years which will at times make U.S. readers proud and at times ashamed.
Mysore Modern reconceptualizes modernity in India using the history of the Princely State of Mysore. In this forcefully argued work, Janaki Nair critiques earlier notions of the native states of India as spaces that were either defined entirely by the dominant narratives of colonial/national modernity or were relatively untouched by them.
Grounded in political history, and deriving insights from a wide range of visual, social, and legal texts and issues, Mysore Modern reperiodizes the modern by connecting these apparently discrepant registers to build up a case for a specifically regional, “monarchical modern” moment in Indian history. Nair examines mural and portraiture traditions, as well as forms of memorialization and nationalization of art and architectural practices. The volume also considers bureaucratic efforts centered on the use of law and development as instruments of modernity.
As Nair demonstrates, the resolution of struggles about the significance of the past in the present, the control of women’s sexuality and labor, and the role of the bureaucracy in Mysore reveal the imperatives of taking the region as the inaugural site for writing a history of Indian modernity.
The Mysteries of the Great City examines the physical, cultural, and political transformations of the American city between the Gilded Age and the New Deal. Focusing on New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati, John Fairfield demonstrates that these transformations before and after the advent of city planning were the result of political decisions influenced by corporate and private wealth.
The expansion and reorganization of the great city stood out as the most visible symbol of the transformation. The new metropolitan form, with its skyscraping business center, industrial satellites, crowded working-class neighborhoods, and exclusive suburbs, embodied an emerging corporate order. But the metropolis also disguised the new order and gave it an apparent physical implacability and inevitability that obscured the role of choice in its creation and therefore placed it beyond criticism. Fairfield unravels the mysteries of the new form to reveal the centrality of power and politics in urban design.
While acknowledging that a great many factors shaped urban development, Fairfield underscores the decisive role of human design. He argues that American cities, both before and after the advent of professional planning, have always been in some measure “planned.” Discussing such figures as Frederick Law Olmsted, Henry George, Daniel Burnham, Frederic Howe, Edward Bassett, Robert E. Park, and Louis Wirth, Fairfield illuminates the political and intellectual conflicts among advocates of alternative paths of urban development.
The Mysteries of the Great City will enlighten all readers interested in the development of cities, particularly urban historians and planners. In pointing to the Gilded Age as a period of great possibilities of progressive reform, this study will also reward readers interested in the historical foundations of our modern society.
The phrase "political correctness" is on everyone’s lips, on radio and television, and in newspapers and magazines. The phenomenon itself, however, has been deceptively described. Wilson steps into the nation’s favorite cultural fray to reveal that many of the most widely publicized anecdotes about PC are in fact more myth than reality. Based on his own experience as a student and in-depth research, he shows what’s really going on beneath the hysteria and alarmism about political correctness and finds that the most disturbing examples of thought policing on campus have come from the right. The image of the college campus as a gulag of left-wing totalitarianism is false, argues Wilson, created largely through the exaggeration of deceptive stories by conservatives who hypocritically seek to silence their political opponents.
Many of today’s most controversial topics are here: multiculturalism, reverse discrimination, speech codes, date rape, and sexual harassment. So are the well-recognized protagonists in the debate: Dinesh D’Souza, William Bennett, and Lynne Cheney, among others. In lively fashion and in meticulous detail, Wilson compares fact to fiction and lays one myth after another to rest, revealing the double standard that allows "conservative correctness" on college campuses to go unchallenged.
With robust empirical data and compelling case studies, the authors reveal the extent to which domestic public opinion limits executive might. Presidents are emboldened to pursue their own agendas when they enjoy strong public support, and constrained when they don’t, since unilateral action risks inciting political pushback, jeopardizing future initiatives, and further eroding their political capital. Although few Americans instinctively recoil against unilateralism, Congress and the courts can sway the public’s view via their criticism of unilateral policies. Thus, other branches can still check the executive branch through political means. As long as presidents are concerned with public opinion, Christenson and Kriner contend that fears of an imperial presidency are overblown.
With this book, David M. Engel demolishes the myth that America is a litigious society. The sobering reality is that the vast majority of injury victims—more than nine out of ten—rely on their own resources, family and friends, and government programs to cover their losses. When real people experience serious injuries, they don’t respond as rational actors. Trauma and pain disrupt their thoughts, and potential claims are discouraged by negative stereotypes that pervade American television and popular culture. (Think Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad, who keeps a box of neck braces in his office to help clients exaggerate their injuries.) Cultural norms make preventable injuries appear inevitable—or the victim’s fault. We’re taught to accept setbacks stoically and not blame someone else. But this tendency to “lump it” doesn’t just hurt the victims; it hurts us all. As politicians continue to push reforms that miss the real problem, we risk losing these claims as a way to quickly identify unsafe products and practices. Because injuries disproportionately fall on people with fewer resources, the existing framework creates a social underclass whose needs must be met by government programs all citizens shoulder while shielding those who cause the harm.
It’s time for America to have a more responsible, blame-free discussion about injuries and the law. With The Myth of the Litigious Society, Engel takes readers clearly and powerfully through what we really know about injury victims and concludes with recommendations for how we might improve the situation.
The book illustrates how expressions of resistance developed from the ground up in different regions of Mexico, including Chihuahua, Guerrero, Jalisco, Mexico City, Puebla, and Nuevo León. Movements in these regions took on a variety of forms, including militant strikes, land invasions, cross-country marches, independent forums, popular organizing, and urban and rural guerrilla uprisings.
México Beyond 1968 brings together leading scholars of Mexican studies today. They share their original research from Mexican archives partially opened after 2000 and now closed again to scholars, and they offer analysis of this rich primary source material, including interviews, political manifestos, newspapers, and human rights reports.
By centering on movements throughout Mexico, México Beyond 1968 underscores the deep-rooted histories of inequality and the frustrations with a regime that monopolized power for decades. It challenges the conception of the Mexican state as “exceptional” and underscores and refocuses the centrality of the 1968 student movement. It brings to light the documents and voices of those who fought repression with revolution and asks us to rethink Mexico’s place in tumultuous times.
Contributors:
Alexander Aviña
Adela Cedillo
A. S. Dillingham
Luis Herrán Avila
Fernando Herrera Calderón
Enrique C. Ochoa
Verónica Oikión Solano
Tanalís Padilla
Wil G. Pansters
Jaime M. Pensado
Gema Santamaría
Michael Soldatenko
Carla Irina Villanueva
Eric Zolov
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