Arab World

Halim Barakat is Research Professor at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and author of Lebanon in Strife (1979). His several novels in Arabic are widely read in the Middle East. Two novels, Days of Dust and Six Days (1983 and 1990), have been translated into English.

• PrefacePART ONE: ARAB IDENTITY AND ISSUES OF DIVERSITY ANDINTEGRATION: OUT OF MANY, ONE1. Social and Political Integration: Alternative Visions of theFutureHistorical ContextConclusion2. Arab Society: Basic Characteristic FeaturesA Critical Approach: Some Methodological ObservationsSome Characteristic Features: Arab SocietyBasics: The Physical Setting, Demography, and EcologyConclusion3. Arab Identity: E pluribus unumThe Arab Sense: BelongingShared Culture and Its VariationsThe Place of Arabs in History and Their Common ExperiencesShared Economic InterestsExternal Challenges and Political UnityConclusion4. The Continuity of Old Cleavages: Tribe, Village, CityThe Bedouin Way: LifeThe Peasantry and the VillageThe City: Urbanization: SocietyNature: The Relationships between Tribe, Village, and CityConclusionPART TWO: SOCIAL STRUCTURES AND INSTITUTIONS: OUT OFONE, MANY 5. Social Classes: Beyond the Mosaic ModelThe Emerging Arab Economic OrderBases of Class Distinction and FormationBasic Classes in Contemporary Arab SocietyClass Relations: Class Consciousness and Class StruggleConclusion6. The Arab Family and the Challenge of ChangeThe Basic Characteristics of the Arab FamilyMarriage and Divorce PatternsThe Family and SocietyConclusion7. Religion in SocietyThe Sociology of IslamThe Social Origins of ReligionReligion and SectOfficial versus Folk or Popular ReligionReligions as Mechanisms of Control, Instigation, and ReconciliationThe Interrelationship between Religion and Other Social InstitutionsReligion and the State--Secularism versus TheocracyAlienation from and in ReligionReligion and Change: Transformation or Conformity?Conclusion8. Arab Politics: Its Social ContextThe Starting Point of AnalysisThe Politics of the Traditional Urban Big BourgeoisieThe Politics of the Intermediate National Bourgeoisie: Western Liberalism,Nationalism, Arab Socialism, and Religious FundamentalismThe Working Classes and the LeftThe Authoritarian Nature of the Arab SystemsConclusion: The Crisis of Civil SocietyPART THREE: THE DYNAMICS OF ARAB CULTURE9. National Character and Value OrientationsThe Question of National CharacterArab Value OrientationsConclusion10. Creative Expression: Society and Literary Orientations Orientations in Arabic Literature Novels of ReconciliationNovels of ExposureNovels of Revolutionary ChangeConclusion11. Arab Thought: Problems of Renewal, Modernity, andTransformationArab Thought in the Formative Period (1850-1914)Arab Thought and the Struggle for National Independence(1918-1945)Independence and Postindependence, 1945-1992: Researching theRoots of DisasterConclusionPART FOUR: THE CRISIS OF CIVIL SOCIETY APPROACHING THEHORIZON OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY12. ConclusionVisions for the FutureNotesGlossarySelect BibliographyIndex