Book Review: Fred Halliday, Nation and Religion in the Middle East (London: Saqi Books, 2000, 260 pp., $19.95 pbk.)
| Author | Bruce B. Lawrence |
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298000290030806 |
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Book Reviews
905
and by in tellectuals who se theorie s are based on secular assumptio ns. However,
while the goal of using rel igion fo r pe ace is an ambitious and noble one, it is
perhaps too o ptimistic to believe that this go al will be easily realised. As t he author
points o ut numerous ti mes, the trend s within many religions that support violen ce
are d eep-rooted and will be, at best, very difficult to overcome. Nevertheless, the
arguments mad e in Between Eden and Armageddon are ones that n eed to be heard,
and the strategies for conflict resolution outlined in detail in the book’s last chapter
present one o f the few h opes of mitigating many see mingly intrac table conflict s
taking place throughout the world.
The volume can not be considered a rigorous scien tific study and it does not draw
greatly from the growing literature on religion and conflict. Rat her, its argu ments
have a philosophical and normative tone that is mostly based on the theological
and conflict resolutio n literature and uses anecdot al evidence and personal
experiences to suppo rt it. However, this bo ok makes arg uments that are useful to
social scientist s and p olitical practitioners. Perhaps more imp ortantly, they are
presented in a way that is highl y accessible to non-academic s. In fact, despite it s
drawbacks, I highly recommend th is book to all who are interested in the topics of
religious conflict and conflict resolution, and especially to academics dealing with
religion, as well as d iplomats or policymakers who mu st deal with con flicts that
have religio us elements.
JONATHAN FOX
Jonathan Fox is Lecturer in the Dep artment of Political Studies
at Bar Ilan Unive rsity, Israel
Fred Halliday, Nation and Religion in the Middle East (London: Saqi B ooks,
2000, 260 pp., $19.95 pbk.).
This bo ok, by a pre-emine nt and prolific po litical theorist at th e London School o f
Economics, should be read as a sequel t o his earlie r book: Isla m and th e Myth of
Confrontation: Religion and Politics in the Middle East (1996). Indeed, the subtit le
of that earlier book see ms almo st to be recycled in the t itle of the book under
review. The format too is similar: a t hematic cl ustering of ind ependent j ournal
articles an d/or b ook chapters in ed ited volumes provid es the basis for a new book ,
one publis hed solely under the author’s name.
There is the ine vitable slippage in any boo k so constru cted: after an initial theory
section (Part I) that offers forceful arguments about the Middle East in gen eral and
Yemen in part icular, the second section on modernity (Part II) seems uneven. It
consists of t hree chapters, and while th e chapter on monarchy in the Mid dle East is
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