Now, in Forces of Fortune, Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists. Nasr's groundbreaking analysis will utterly rewrite the wisdom about how the West can best contend with the threat of Islamic extremism, as well as about the future we can expect of the Muslim world. The great battle for the soul of Iran, the Arab world, Pakistan, and the entire region will be fought not over religion, Nasr reveals, but over business and capitalism. With a deft combination of historical narrative and eye-opening contemporary on-the-ground reporting from his constant trips to the region, Nasr takes us behind the news, so dominated by the struggle against extremists and the Taliban, to introduce a Muslim world we've not seen—a Muslim world in which the balance of power is being reshaped by an upwardly mobile middle class of entrepreneurs, investors, professionals, and avid consumers, who can tip the scales away from extremist belligerence. His insights into the true situations in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the crucial bright spots of Dubai and Turkey provide a whole new way of thinking about the troubles and prospects in the region. Drawing on his in-depth knowledge of the Muslim world's tortured history, Nasr offers a powerful reassessment of why extremism and anti-Americanism took hold in the region—not because of an inevitable "clash of cultures" or the nature of Islam, but because of the failure of this kind of authentic middle class to develop in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, largely due to the insidious effects first of colonialism and then of top-down dictatorial regimes, often supported by the West. He then shows that the devoutly Islamic yet highly modern Muslims of what he calls the "critical middle"—in Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, and the stealth force behind the extraordinary growth of aggressively capitalist Dubai—are finally the middle class the region has desperately needed. They are building a whole new economy, as the middle classes did in both India and China, and their distinctive blending of Islam and capitalism is the key to bringing about lasting reform and to defeating fundamentalism. They are people in the region the West can and must do business with.Forces of Fortune offers a transformative understanding of the Muslim world and its possible future that is sure to spark lively debate and to play a vital role in bringing about a sea change in thinking about the conflict with Islam.

    The struggle between radical movements and the forces of reaction will be merciless. A crucial battlefield, where the outcome of the crisis will in part be decided, is that of theory. Over the last twenty-five years, radical intellectuals across the world have produced important and innovative ideas.The endeavour to transform the world without falling into the catastrophic traps of the past has been a common element uniting these new approaches. This book – aimed at both the general reader and the specialist – offers the first global cartography of the expanding intellectual field of critical contemporary thought. More than thirty authors and intellectual currents of every continent are presented in a clear and succinct manner. A history of critical thought in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is also provided, helping situate current thinkers in a broader historical and sociological perspective.

    Unlike those organized Islamist activities that seek to seize or transform the state, this is a moral reform movement whose orthodox practices are commonly viewed as inconsequential to Egypt's political landscape. Saba Mahmood's compelling exposition of these practices challenges this assumption by showing how the ethical and the political are indelibly linked within the context of such movements.Not only is this book a sensitive ethnography of a critical but largely ignored dimension of the Islamic revival, it is also an unflinching critique of the secular-liberal principles by which some people hold such movements to account. The book addresses three central questions: How do movements of moral reform help us rethink the normative liberal account of politics? How does the adherence of women to the patriarchal norms at the core of such movements parochialize key assumptions within feminist theory about freedom, agency, authority, and the human subject? How does a consideration of debates about embodied religious rituals among Islamists and their secular critics help us understand the conceptual relationship between bodily form and political imaginaries? Politics of Piety is essential reading for anyone interested in issues at the nexus of ethics and politics, embodiment and gender, and liberalism and postcolonialism.

    It examines both the historical and contemporary trajectory of the Palestine solidarity movement in order to glean lessons for today’s organizers, and compellingly lays out the argument that, in order to achieve justice in Palestine, the movement has to take up the question of socialism regionally and internationally.Contributors include: Jehad Abusalim, Shireen Akram-Boshar, Omar Barghouti, Nada Elia, Toufic Haddad, Omar Hassan, Remi Kanazi, Annie Levin, Mostafa Omar, Khury Petersen-Smith, and Daphna Thier.

    Balances a comprehensive overview of the political and economic events of the revolution with a look at the revolution's social impact Provides a lively, on-the-ground look at the lives of ordinary people Features both U.S. and Cuban perspectives to provide a complete and well-rounded look at the revolution and its repercussions Encourages students to understand history through the viewpoint of individuals living it Selected as a 2011 Outstanding Academic Title by CHOICE

    The book argues that Muslims, nurished by their own points of reference, can approach the modern epoch by adopting a specific social, political, and economic model that is linked to ethical values, a sense of finalities and spirituality. Rather than a modernism that tends to impose Westernization, it is a modernity that admits to the pluralism of civilizations, religions, and cultures.Table of Contents:ForewordIntroductionHistory of a ConceptThe Lessons of HistoryPart 1: At the shores of Transcendence: between God and ManPart 2: The Horizons of Islam: Between Man and the CommunityPart 3: Values and Finalities: The Cultural Dimension of the Civilizational Face to FaceConclusionAppendixIndexTariq Ramadan is a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford and a visiting professor in Identity and Citizenship at Erasmus University. He was named by TIME Magazine as one of the one hundred innovators of the twenty-first century.

    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 world's leading authorities on the Middle East, tells how the clash between pan-Arab nationalism and pan-Islamism 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 twentieth-century Arab world's most influential figures--Sayyid 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 in-depth 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 Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

    . . . This book is an essential read."2009) was the editor of International Socialism and the author of numerous books, including A People's History of the World (Verso Books).

    Jameson’s inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from “high” art to “low” from market ideology to architecture, from painting to “punk” film, from video art to literature.

    C. Wright Mills examines and critiques the organization of power in the United States, calling attention to three firmly interlocked prongs of power: the military, corporate, andpolitical elite. The Power Elite can be read as a good account of what was taking place in America at the time it was written, but its underlying question of whether America is as democratic in practice as it is in theory continues to matter very much today.What The Power Elite informed readers of in 1956 was how much the organization of power in America had changed during their lifetimes, and Alan Wolfe's astute afterword to this new edition brings us up to date, illustrating how much more has changed since then. Wolfe sorts out what is helpful inMills' book and which of his predictions have not come to bear, laying out the radical changes in American capitalism, from intense global competition and the collapse of communism to rapid technological transformations and ever changing consumer tastes. The Power Elite has stimulated generations ofreaders to think about the kind of society they have and the kind of society they might want, and deserves to be read by every new generation.

    Exploring key anarchist ideas of society and the state, freedom and equality, authority and power, the record investigates the successes and failures of anarchist movements throughout the world. Presenting a balanced and critical survey, the detailed document covers not only classic anarchist thinkers--such as Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Reclus, and Emma Goldman--but also other libertarian figures, such as Nietzsche, Camus, Gandhi, Foucault, and Chomsky. Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand what anarchists stand for and what they have achieved, this fascinating account also includes an epilogue that examines the most recent developments, including postanarchism and anarcho-primitivism as well as the anarchist contributions to the peace, green, and global justice movements of the 21st century.

    Written in a direct, inviting way by Harry Braverman, whose years as an industrial worker gave him rich personal insight into work, Labor and Monopoly Capital overturned the reigning ideologies of academic sociology.This new edition features an introduction by John Bellamy Foster that sets the work in historical and theoretical context, as well as two rare articles by Braverman, The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (1975) and Two Comments (1976), that add much to our understanding of the book.

    Marx’s Das Kapital For Beginners is an introduction to the Marxist critique of capitalist production and its consequences for a whole range of social activities such as politics, media, education and religion. Das Kapital is not a critique of a particular capitalist system in a particular country at a particular time. Rather, Marx ‘s aim was to identify the essential features that define capitalism, in whatever country it develops and in whatever historical period. For this reason, Das Kapital is necessarily a fairly general, abstract analysis. As a result, it can be fairly difficult to read and comprehend. At the same time, understanding Das Kapital is crucial for mastering Marx’s insights to capitalism.  Marx’s Das Kapital For Beginners offers an accessible path through Marx’s arguments and his key questions: What is a commodity? Where does wealth come from? What is ‘value’? What happens to work under capitalism? Why is crisis part of capitalism’s DNA? And what happens to our consciousness, our very perceptions of reality and our ways of thinking and feeling under capitalism?  Understanding and learning from Marx’s work has taken on a fresh urgency as questions about the sustainability of the capitalist system in today’s global economy intensify.

    Long an iconic figure for radicals, Huey Newton is now being discovered by those interested in the history of America's social movements. This new release of a classic collection of his writings and speeches traces the development of Newton's personal and political thinking, as well as the radical changes that took place in the formative years of the Black Panther Party.With a rare and persuasive honesty, To Die for the People records the Party's internal struggles, rivalries and contradictions, and the result is a fascinating look back at a young revolutionary group determined to find ways to deal with the injustice it saw in American society. And, as a new foreword by Elaine Brown makes eminently clear, Newton's prescience and foresight make these documents strikingly pertinent today.

    But the biggest transformations of what has been labeled as the "Arab Spring" are yet to come.An insider to both American policy and the world of the Arab public, Marc Lynch shows that the fall of particular leaders is but the least of the changes that will emerge from months of unrest. The far-ranging implications of the rise of an interconnected and newly-empowered Arab populace have only begun to be felt. Young, frustrated Arabs now know that protest can work and that change is possible. They have lost their fear--meanwhile their leaders, desperate to survive, have heard the unprecedented message that killing their own people will no longer keep them in power. Even so, as Lynch reminds us, the last wave of region-wide protest in the 1950s and 1960s resulted not in democracy, but in brutal autocracy. Will the Arab world's struggle for change succeed in building open societies? Will authoritarian regimes regain their grip, or will Islamist movements seize the initiative to impose a new kind of rule?"The Arab Uprising" follows these struggles from Tunisia and Egypt to the harsh battles of Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and Libya and to the cautious reforms of the region's monarchies. It examines the real meaning of the rise of Islamist movements in the emerging democracies, and the longterm hopes of a generation of activists confronted with the limits of their power. It points toward a striking change in the hierarchy of influence, as the old heavyweights--Iran, Al Qaeda, even Israel--have been all but left out while oil-rich powers like Saudi Arabia and "swing states" like Turkey and Qatar find new opportunities to spread their influence. And it reveals how America must adjust to the new realities. Deeply informed by inside access to the Obama administration's decision-making process and first-hand interviews with protestors, politicians, diplomats, and journalists, "The Arab Uprising" highlights the new fault lines that are forming between forces of revolution and counter-revolution, and shows what it all means for the future of American policy. The result is an indispensible guide to the changing lay of the land in the Middle East and North Africa.