Making the Arab World

A highly knowledgeable history that is helpful in explaining recent developments in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. --Kirkus To understand the current environment within Egypt and its neighboring countries, Gerges provides both an analytical as well as empirical framework to assist in understanding the difficulties between nationalism and activist Islam. ---Lt. Col. Stephen Harvey, U.S. Army, Retired, Military Review Fawaz Gerges gives a novel, nuanced, and extremely interesting view of the relationship between the hero of Arab nationalism, Gamal Nasser, and the main intellectual of the Muslim Brotherhood Sayyid Qutb. I enjoyed reading it both from a pleasure point of view as well as from an informative one. It is highly readable and informative. ---Karim Mezran, Atlantic Council This dual biography of two Egyptians, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Sayyid Qutb, shows clearly that the conflagration in Middle Eastern lands was kindled a long time ago. In the face of a complex civilizational dynamic, Gerges gives the reader the fundamental answer: What we have intervened in is an intra-Islamic war between the secular nationalists and the Islamists; or, in the words of one of Gerges's Islamist interviewees, a war between 'Islam versus apostasy.' ---Lima Simms, Law and Liberty Making the Arab World: Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash that Shaped the Middle East is a significant contribution to Middle East studies. It draws together incredible research to tell an important story about two figures who had a great impact on life in their own historical moment and beyond. ---Caleb Elfenbein, American Academy of Religion In Making the Arab World, Fawaz Gerges traces the intertwining biographies and intellectual trajectories of these two titans of Egyptian history. The result is a fascinating and deeply researched revisionist history--one that sheds light on the forces still roiling in Egypt under the surface calm of Sisi's rule. Today, Nasser and Qutb are remembered as representatives of opposing visions for Egypt. Gerges, however, tells a far more interesting and complicated story about the relationship between the two men and the movements they helped shape. Behind their competing ideologies were flawed individuals with complex and sometimes contradictory motivations. Gerges' reexamination of a crucial period in Egyptian history usefully illustrates how all ideologies--even the ones that seem most fixed and unyielding--are in fact fluid and contingent on events. ---Shadi Hamid, Foreign Affairs Gerges . . . writes with brilliant insight about these two competing forces in the Arab world: pan-nationalism and pan-Islamist movements. ---Steve Donoghue, The National At 400-plus pages, the new book from Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, is a weighty tome drawing on more than 12 years of research but it is also accessible and refreshing. ---Gareth Smyth, Arab Weekly This is an important work of journalism as well as history. ---Richard Spencer, The Times Making the Arab World is distinctive not only in its much-needed focus on the interaction between Nasserism and Egyptian Islamism, but also in the degree to which the author had access to the views of people who were and are directly involved in the events. --John Voll, author of Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World A superb work of original scholarship that feeds into a gripping narrative on the fault line between Arab nationalists and Islamists that shaped the modern history of the Middle East. For anyone who wants to make sense of the tangled politics of the region today, there is no better guide. --Avi Shlaim, author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World Fawaz Gerges is our most perceptive and level-headed analyst of the rise of Muslim extremism. In a field strewn with glib generalizations and sometimes colored by mere bigotry, he insists on giving us context and concentrating on specifics, which he presents in a lively and engaging style. Here he steps back to reveal the full sweep of a key conflict fought throughout the Middle East over the past seventy years between a secular-leaning, authoritarian nationalism and a theocratic irredentism. This is an essential book. --Juan Cole, author of The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation Is Changing the Middle East A major achievement, this impeccably researched book contributes significantly to our understanding of Arab and Islamic politics, supplementing and correcting much of it. --James Piscatori, Australian National University Drawing on decades of interviews, Fawaz Gerges gives us a novel, nuanced, and revealing picture of the relationship between the Egyptian nationalist hero Gamal Abdel Nasser and his one-time ally and ultimate nemesis in the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb. The book offers a fresh interpretation of the modern histories of both the Arab nationalist and Islamist movements--one that will profoundly reshape conventional wisdom about politics in the Arab world. --Lisa Anderson, former president of the American University in Cairo The modern history of Egypt and the Middle East has been profoundly shaped by the interaction between two deeply rooted forces--nationalism and political Islam. Focusing on two outsize personalities who personified these currents, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Sayyid Qutb, and drawing on a decade of research, including many interviews, Fawaz Gerges shows the complex, not always antagonistic, relationship between these powerful and enduring political realities. --William B. Quandt, author of Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict since 1967