A THEMATIC COMMENTARY ON THE QUR’AN by Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali. Pub: International Institute of Islamic Thought, USA; Islamic Book Trust Malaysia, 2000. Pp: 800; Price: RM60.00.
THE VITAL ILLUSION by Jean Baudrillard. The Wellek Library Lectures. Pub: New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Pp. 102. Hbk. Price: US$18.
THE GLOBAL GAMBLE: WASHINGTON’S FAUSTIAN BID FOR WORLD DOMINANCE by Peter Gowan. Pub: Verso Books, London/New York, 1999. Pbk: 320. £13.00 / $ 20.00
The USA is often described by its critics as a global empire. Those who are less critical of its role in the world sometimes prefer to describe it as the world’s sole superpower.
EMPIRE by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Pub: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, and London, UK, 2000. Pp: 478. Pbk: $18.95 / £12.95.
MODERN ISLAMIC POLITICAL THOUGHT, by Hamid Enayat (revised edition, with foreword by Hamid Algar). Pub: Islamic Book Trust, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2001. Pp. 307; pbk. RM36.00 / $12.00 (excld. postage)
NON-WESTERN EDUCATIONAL TRADITIONS: ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT AND PRACTICE
THE TRIAL OF HENRY KISSINGER by Christopher Hitchens. Pub: Verso, New York, USA, 2001. Pp. 159. Hbk. US$22.00.
THE TRIPLE HELIX: GENE, ORGANISM, AND ENVIRONMENT by Richard Lewontin. Harvard University Press, 2000. Pp. 136. Hbk. US$23.
History is a broad church (to put it mildly) and the term ‘historian’ covers a bewildering range of sinners, from those deliberately hiding from unpleasant realities in the study of the deadest-possible past (agrarian life in the Aztec empire, say) to contemporary historians whose agendas are blatantly political, with no end of variation between.
Hamas: Political Thought and Practice by Khalid Hroub. Pub: Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington DC, USA, 2000, pp. 329, $16.95.
What Is Globalization? by Ulrich Beck (translated from the German by Patrick Camiller).
Let Them Eat Data: How Computers Affect Education, Cultural Diversity, and the Prospects of Ecological Sustainability
THE EVOLUTION DECEIT: THE SCIENTIFIC COLLAPSE OF DARWINISM AND ITS IDEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND by Harun Yahya. Pub: Ta-Ha Publishers, London, UK, 1999. Pp: 234 (with colour pictures). Pbk: £4.95.
A key part of Western propaganda is the creation of the myth of the good life in modern Western societies. At the same time, the Western media machine regularly reports on the conditions of poor parts of the world, particularly in Asia, Africa and other places.
The Society of Muslim Brothers in Egypt by Brynjar Lia. Pub: Garnet Publishers, Reading, UK. Pp: 328. Price: £30.
History, it is often said, is written by the victors. In these terms, the Ottoman sultanate has been doubly damned, its history having been variously written by the West that dismantled it and Turkey’s nationalist-secularists, who have been determined to accept the West’s contempt for it.
The drama of the arrest of the US Navy’s EP-3E spy-plane by the Chinese in April drew international attention to the USA’s intelligence operations around the world. Twenty-four Americans were held in China for 11 days following the incident, before being allowed to fly back to America after some intense diplomacy. Four of them were US navy servicemen; the rest were civilian analysts working for the National Security Agency (NSA).
Mention of the Tablighi Jama’at often conjures up images of ascetic Muslims with long beards and loose dresses. Such steoreotyping is not always inaccurate.
Eqbal Ahmed: Confronting Empire edited by David Barsamian. Pub: Pluto Press, London, UK, 2000. Pp: 326. Pbk: £11.99.
