Configuring Identity in the Modern Arab East

This is a collection of papers from a conference entitled “Political Identity in the Arab East in the Twentieth Century," hosted by the Center for Arab and Middle East Studies of the American University of Beirut. Scholars and students alike with an interest in the Middle East will find the topics treated, the perspectives adopted, and the conclusions of continuing interest and pertinence. The volume includes contributions from the following authors: Ahmad Dallal, David Commins, Thomas Philipp, Samir Seikaly, Rashid Khalidi, Fred Lawson, Aziz Al-Azmeh, Roger Owen, and Hazem El-Beblawi.

​​This volume presents the study of conflict and conflict management in the Middle East through a variety of case studies. This is a collection of twenty papers prepared for a 1993 conference entitled “Conflict Resolution in the Arab World: Theory and Practice," organized by AUB and held in Larnaca, Cyprus. The essays cover the general subjects of conflict resolution in Islam, the sociological roots of conflict resolution in the Arab world, and conflict resolution and the Arab State. They include several case studies focusing on Sudan, Somalia, Kuwait, Lebanon, and the Palestinians. Two introductory chapters deal, respectively, with western perspectives on conflict resolution and a critique of those perspectives from a non-western viewpoint. Some of the many traditional mechanisms of conflict resolution are discussed, along with how they are being undermined by the profundity and rapidity of social change in the region.​

​​Over the last two centuries, the French dimension of Arab history has loomed large. The Arab world equally has played a major role in recent French history. Franco-Arab Encounters treats the many aspects of this interaction, tracing not just the political, but also the cultural, social, and intellectual. Twenty authors present these “encounters" in seven sections covering the Arab world, from Morocco to Saudi Arabia, over the past two hundred years. The book is dedicated to the memory of David C. Gordon, a pioneer and leader in this field of scholarship, who taught history at AUB from 1949 to 1955 and 1958 to 1975.

Kamal Salibi is primarily renowned for his monumental contributions to the history of Lebanon. Yet his scholarly legacy extends well beyond Lebanon to topics that span the Middle East from biblical to contemporary times. This collection of twenty-three papers, written in Dr. Salibi's honor and memory, similarly covers a range of subjects that touch upon his interests. They include aspects of ancient, medieval, and modern Arabic/Islamic and Middle Eastern history, literature, and art, and are arranged in four sections: (a) Kamal Salibi as Teacher and Historian; (b) Lebanese, Ottoman, and Arab History; (c) Islamic Studies; and (d) Syriac Studies.

Malcolm Kerr was the ninth AUB president, serving only eighteen months before being assassinated in January 1984. This volume is a collection of essays in the memory of Dr. Kerr whose own scholarship centered on the politics and history of the Middle East and Islam. The studies are divided into three parts: Lebanon, past and present; the politics of the modern Middle East; and Islamic legacy. Under these sections a wide range of topics are covered, from the origin of the name Lebanon, to the Camp David negotiations, and the archaeology of early Islam.

With the revolution of 1962 came the end of the thousand-year-old imamate in Yemen. The preceding thirty years had witnessed a multiplicity of attempts to bring about reforms in the kingdom. Personal interviews as well as British records, media reports, and other accounts by Middle East specialists are skillfully integrated here to give a comprehensive picture of the time. The often conflicting monarchical, colonial, and Arab nationalist interests in Yemen provide the context for the author's chronology and analysis of the three decades of Free Yemeni activities that paved the way for the Republican Revolution.