May Arrivals at Middle East Books and More!

New May Arrivals at Middle East Books and More!

All books are featured in the Washington Report's Middle East Books Review section of the magazine.
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Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, the Party & Public Belief by Greg Philo, Mike Berry, Justin Schlosberg, Antony Lerman and David Miller, Pluto Press, 2019, paperback, 192 pp. MEB $21.

There has been an extraordinary amount of media reporting on the issue of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party and anti-Semitism. In the three years after Corbyn became party leader there were more than 5,000 news stories and articles in the British national press alone. Bad News for Labour examines the impact of this coverage on public beliefs about the party. It replaces media hype with the rigorous analysis of evidence. The authors draw on carefully compiled research to reveal surprising ﬁndings in this guide to the reality behind the headlines.

Globalized Authoritarianism: Megaprojects, Slums, and Class Relations in Urban Morocco, by Koenraad Bogaert, University of Minnesota Press, 2018, paperback, 312 pp. MEB $28.

Over the past 30 years, Morocco’s cities have transformed dramatically. Megaprojects are redesigning the cityscapes of Rabat, Tangier and Casablanca, turning the nation’s urban centers into laboratories of capital accumulation, political dominance and social control. In Globalized Authoritarianism , Koenraad Bogaert links abstract questions of government, globalization and neoliberalism with concrete changes in the city. Bogaert goes deep beneath the surface of Morocco’s urban prosperity to reveal how neoliberal governance and increased connectivity—engendered by global capitalism—have transformed Morocco’s leading urban spaces, opening up new sites for capital accumulation, creating enormous class divisions and enabling new innovations in state authoritarianism. Showing how Morocco’s experiences have produced new forms of globalization, Bogaert offers a bridge between indepth issues of Middle East studies and broader questions of power, class and capital as they continue to evolve in the 21st century.

The Syrian Revolution: Between the Politics of Life and The Geopolitics of Death, by Yasser Munif, Pluto Press, 2020, paperback, 208 pp. MEB $26.

Understanding the Syrian revolution is unthinkable without an in-depth analysis from below. Paying attention to the complex activities of the grassroots resistance, this book demands we rethink the revolution. Having lived in Syria for more than 15 years, Yasser Munif explores the micropolitics of revolutionary forces. He uncovers how cities are managed, how precious food is distributed and how underground resistance thrives in regions controlled by the regime. In contrast, the macropolitics of the elite Syrian regime are undemocratic, destructive and counter-revolutionary. Regional powers, Western elites, as well as international institutions choose this macropolitical lens to apprehend the Syrian conflict. By doing so, they also choose to ignore the revolutionaries’ struggles. Munif illustrates that this macro and geopolitical authoritarianism only brings death, and that by looking at the smaller picture—the local, the grassroots, the revolutionaries—we can see the politics of life emerge.

Going Home: A Walk Through Fifty Years of Occupation, by Raja Shehadeh, The New Press, 2020, hardcover, 256 pp. MEB $22.

In Going Home, Raja Shehadeh, the Orwell Prize–winning author of Palestinian Walks, takes us on a series of journeys around his hometown of Ramallah. Set in a single day—the day that happens to be the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza—the book is a powerful and moving record and chronicle of the changing face of his city. A penetrating evocation of memory, pain and place that is lightened by everyday joys such as delightful accounts of shared meals and gardening, Going Home is perhaps Raja Shehadeh’s most moving and painfully visceral addition to his series of personal histories of the occupation, confirming writer Rachel Kushner’s judgment that “Shehadeh is a buoy in a sea of bleakness.”

We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders: A Memoir of Love and Resistance, by Linda Sarsour, 37 Ink, 2020, hardcover, 272 pp. MEB $24.

Linda Sarsour, co-founder of the Women’s March, shares how growing up a Palestinian Muslim American empowered her to become a globally recognized activist on behalf of marginalized communities across the country. From the Brooklyn bodega her father owned, where Sarsour learned the real meaning of intersectionality, to protests in the streets of Washington, DC, Sarsour’s experience as a daughter of Palestinian immigrants is a moving portrayal of what it means to find one’s voice and use it for the benefit of others. The memoir follows Sarsour as she learns the tenets of successful community organizing and through decades of fighting for racial, economic, gender and social justice as she becomes one of the most recognized activists in the nation.

Dune Song, by Anissa M. Bouziane, Interlink Books, 2019, 369 pp. MEB $15.

Winner of the Special Jury Prize, Prix Littéraire Sofitel Tour Blanche

“I came to the Sahara to be buried.”

After witnessing the collapse of the World Trade Center, Jeehan Nathaar leaves her New York life with her sense of identity fractured and her American dream destroyed. She returns to Morocco to make her home with a family that’s not her own. Healed by their kindness but caught up in their troubles, Nathaar struggles to move beyond the pain and confusion of September 11th. On this desiccated landscape, thousands of miles from Ground Zero, the Dune sings of death, love and forgiveness.

Also, check out our interview last week with Palestinian author Ramzy Baroud discussing his new book, These Chains Will Be Broken.

You can buy his book here.

For those of you who live in the DC area, we are now offering curbside pick up on Mondays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.!

To do this:
1) Place your order online
2) Email [email protected] to arrange a time for pick up at our store.
3) Once your order is picked up, we'll reimburse the shipping charges.

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