PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Omar AlShehabi is director of the Gulf Centre for Development Policies and an assistant professor in economics at the Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait. He is the author of several scholarly books and articles and has contributed to numerous international publications, including the Guardian, Al-Monitor and Jadaliyya.
`This is a crucial corrective to misleading and injurious narratives about the perpetually sectarian Gulf and its people. Credit to AlShehabi for historicizing the interrelated problems of sectarianism and colonialism in modern Bahrain, the Gulf region, and the wider Arab world.' -- Ussama S. Makdisi, Professor of History, Rice University `With great ambition, rich empirical detail and theoretical nuance, this book successfully sets out to rewrite the history of modern Bahrain from the mid-nineteenth century until the present day. Omar AlShehabi has deployed an impressive range of Arabic sources to problematise the existing academic narratives that seek to explain Bahrain's relationship with the British and its own path to independence and state-building... A convincing and original new explanation of the lineages of modern Bahrain, essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Bahraini history, the modern politics of the Gulf and rise of sectarian politics in the Middle East.' -- Toby Dodge, Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics `AlShehabi offers an insightful and a fresh perspective that challenges dominant narratives on contemporary sectarian politics in Bahrain and the other states of the Arabian Gulf. While situating the Arab Gulf countries within mainstream debates on Arab Al Nahda, the book provides well-argued analyses of the Gulf-specific colonial experiences and the colonial roots of the modernized absolutist rule in the region.' -- Abdulhadi Khalaf, Professor of Sociology, Lund University
