Eastern University Books

This is probably the smallest pocket companion in size, but the largest in content. A must for any serious Siva devotee.Absolutely heart-wrenching, and life-transforming. A truly unique devotional gem.

Tubten Khetsun provides a remarkably detailed and vivid account of what Tibetans have undergone during and following the brutal take over of their land by China during the period between 1959-1979. He takes you in with him during his struggle to survive in what has been the darkest period of Tibet's history and leaves you amazed and grateful in his personal victory and emancipation while simulataneously feeling open-hearted for the terrible suffering that the Tibetans have undergone. This is not only of interest from a hisorical perspective, but more importantly, from a humanitarian perspective...it's a must read!

In a publishing atmosphere saturated by instant Iraq experts, Rutgers University political scientist Davis presents a rare work of careful scholarship. Memories of State examines the intellectual tyranny of the Baath in Iraq, tracing its efforts to undue the cultural pluralism which once characterized Iraqi society.
Davis begins by describing how Ottoman reform, Iranian constitutionalism, and nascent Arab nationalism combined to shape an Iraqi intelligentsia. With time--and especially after independence--the Arab nationalist trend gained strength. Intellectual Iraq was not homogenous, though. While Shi'ite intellectual life was vibrant, it oriented itself more around the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala and toward Iran than to the nascent state.
While it would be an exaggeration to call Iraqi political culture tolerant, its early years were marked by cultural pluralism. Not only Muslims but also Jews and Christians participated in state and society. This political culture began to fracture in the 1930s. By allying themselves with the military, which they saw as a force to impose reform, Iraqi progressives opened a Pandora's box of coups and instability. Pan-Arabists gained strength in the years prior to World War II, and cultural pluralism deteriorated. Nazi propaganda permeated society. The Jewish community never recovered after the 1940 farhud (pogrom) in Baghdad.
While minority communities became detached from the Iraqi mainstream, there was still dynamic political debate. Davis traces the development of the war of ideas between Arab nationalists and communists. Using a wide variety of Arabic sources drawn from field research in Iraqi archives and libraries, Davis traces the newspapers and books that influenced society and politics. He reaches into the roots of intellectual life at the time, even detailing specific coffeehouses where writers would discuss and debate their ideas.
While the 1958 revolution sparked political and civic activity, the 1968 Baathist coup curtailed it. The intellectual chill was not instantaneous, though. Davis examines how the Baathist regime moved to co-opt Iraq's intelligentsia and brainwash its youth. He surveys books, newspapers, literary journals, and even graphic art to show how the Iraqi regime sought to promote Sunni Arab nationalism. A wide array of photographs of everything from models at Iraqi fashion shows to Saddam's monumental architecture help illustrate Davis' arguments.
The chapter on "Memories of State and the Arts of Resistance," is particularly strong. In it, Davis details the subtle academic censorship exerted by the Ministry of Culture. Baathist bureaucrats okayed the publication of lackluster theses on esoteric topics but refused to print award-winning anthropological studies of Iraqi tribes, for these latter acknowledged a diversity that the Baath party did not wish to recognize. Iraq's once rich poetic tradition narrowed into a celebration of Arab nationalism. The survey of Iraqi newspaper content in the 1990s shows how stilted Iraq's once rich discourse had become.
While Memories of State will be of lasting value to academics and historians wishing to understand the evolution and deterioration of Iraq's intelligentsia, its dense academic prose undercuts its utility. Readers are saddled with long asides about contrasting theories of "historical memory," "Gramscian notions of hegemony," and other examples of unnecessary obfuscation.

Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2007

This is a brilliant, extremely well-written account of English women colonial travellers to India in the nineteenth century. Far form being emancipators of the colonized, Ghose provocatively argues, these women, a la Anna and the King of Siam, were engaged in a "civilizing" project of the "natives" which was complicit with the orientalist and imperialist interests of the British Empire. Ghose's acute, astute account of the "female gaze" as it played out at a particular historical moment has broad implicatins for feminist criticism in general and for film studies as well.

This book is Professor David Rempel's posthumous magnum opus. David Rempel was born in 1899 in Nieder Khortitsa, Ukraine, into the thriving Russian Mennonite community that had existed there since late 18th century. And as such, he was an eyewitness to the events recorded in this book, the events that surrounded the final destruction of the Mennonite community in Russia.

This book begins by tracing the migration on the Mennonites from Prussia to the Ukraine, and the growth of the Mennonite communities there. When the book gets to Professor Rempel's own era, it shifts, becoming a biography of himself and his immediate family. As this part of the story proceeds, you get to see the sad fate of the Russian Mennonites, seeing their experiences through the eyes of the author.

Now, I must say that I found this book to be both highly informative and very moving. The author does an excellent job of presenting the Russian Mennonites with all of their faults, as an imperfect people (as all are), who found themselves caught up in a catastrophe that they could not deal with.

I must admit that I cannot find words enough to express my feelings about this wonderful book, and fear that this review does not even begin to do it justice. Let me just say that I loved this book, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Russian Mennonites, or the fate of minorities in Revolutionary Russia.

This is an excellent book, even though it is more focused on the North Africans than the Arabs.

'Middle Eastern Sketches' is a highly enjoyable text recounting the travels of an American academic and international relations expert through the Middle East. It is a superb reference for any individual interested in the region. Katz delivers cultural insight from a Western standpoint through anecdotal recaps supported by sociopolitical and ethnographic explanations. His balance of humor and seriousness make for a good backdrop to the characters he introduces throughout his journeys. From careening down the Nile in an attitude-run Egyptian cruiser to an unusual primer in Sufism in Iran, Katz engages individual Middle Easterners from each end of the socioeconomic spectrum, describing their lives and views of America in a clear and understandable manner. A constant theme, anti-Americanism, arises again and again in conversations he has with individuals throughout the region. His answers to these people are impressive, grounded in fact and logic, and fair in their delivery. He also details the hinderances and pitfalls of an American travelling through the Middle East, especially with the express interest of politically-oriented research. Aside from the general (yet ever important) linguistical and cultural hurdles, his outlines of dealing with visa officials, university heads, and government bureaucrats offer an insight into the difficulties inherent in internationally-oriented research. It is an especially essential text for students of international relations as it would undoubtedly be one of the few books that is as informative, in both a formal and an informal way, as it is entertaining. For those not students of international relations, it adds color and a personal relativity to the otherwise colorless Middle Eastern affairs which Americans find themselves subjected to daily. I highly recommend it and feel confident that it will satisfy any taste.

In one sense, terrorism has been employed as a weapon of both civil and international warfare since the earliest recorded events of human conflicts from the fertile crescent of Ur and Babylonia, to the kingdoms of ancient Egypt. The current expression of terrorism arising in and stemming from the middle east is largely focused on an internecine conflict between competing branches of Islam (principally between the Sunni and the Shia), and the conflict between a fundamentalist Islam and the Western cultural and political influences from the democracies of North American and the former colonial powers of Europe. The terrorism-based warfare that began against the United States and its allies (in both Europe and the Middle East) in the 1970s and evolved into the war against fundamentalist Islamic forces such as those that have attacked Americans at home and abroad directly is the subject and focus of "Middle Eastern Terrorism: From Black September to September 11" by academician and historian Mark Ensalaco (holder of the Raymond A Roesch Chair in the Social Sciences, University of Dayton) and is a vital contribution of the history of the violence that has ensued between hostile Islamic forces against the West, including its origins in American support for dictatorial suppressive governments of Middle Eastern countries as part of the Cold War confrontation between American and the Soviet Union, the Palestinian/Israel conflict, and the American/European corporate exploitation of Middle Eastern resources. Professor Ensalaco offers cogent insights and a coherent history that is as timely as it is necessary in light of the continuing and expanding terrorist-based violence seen today on the international stage. Also very highly recommended for both academic and community library collections from the University of Pennsylvania Press is "Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks In The Twenty-First Century" (9780812240658) by forensic psychiatrist and government counter-terrorism consultant Marc Sageman.

South Asia's geography and politics is of key interest to the developing nations, and so A Military History of India and South Asia From the East India Company to the Nuclear Era should be on the shelves of any college-level collection, whether it be military or civilian in nature. Collections also strong in Asian history and culture will find this history important: it surveys the region since 1700, covering major conflicts, ideological and social differences, military encounters, and more. Experts contribute chapters strongly supported by source materials and research.

One of this book's goals is to compare the laws of warfare presented in Deuteronomy 20 with those of the surrounding Near Eastern environment. The biblical chapter offers an unusual ruling to early Israelites: They were prohibited from destroying fruit trees to build siege works during warfare. Michael Hasel examines this instruction as a polemic within the context of over a millennium of ancient Near Eastern military activity, comparing Israelite practices with those of surrounding nations. Through analysis of textual, iconographical, and archaeological evidence, his broad survey has notable implications for the dating of the book of Deuteronomy. Carefully written, with images provided from iconographic sources, this significant book is an interesting read.