Eugene Rogan is a faculty fellow and university lecturer in the Modern History of the Middle East at St Antony's College, Oxford, where he serves as director of the Middle East Centre. His previous book, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire, was judged by the Middle East Studies Association of North America to be the best work on the Middle East in 2000 and awarded the Albert Hourani Prize. He lives in Oxford, England.
The Economist
"[A] fascinating [story], and exceedingly well told.... What makes
[Rogan's] book particularly useful is the way it situates [the
Arab-Israeli conflict] within the wider context of the Arabs' long,
and still unsuccessful, struggle to come to more equal terms with
the West. Europeans in particular, and also Americans, need their
memories jogged about just how arrogant, duplicitous and frequently
stupid their governments have been in dealing with the Middle
East.... [An] exemplary history."
The Scotsman (UK)
"An incredibly ambitious book... wonderfully inclusive and
articulate and knowledgeable, pretty much indispensable."
The Times (UK)
"[The Arabs], which starts with the Ottoman Turks' conquest of the
Arab world in 1516-17, offers a strikingly vivid and authoritative
account of its subsequent experience... [Rogan's] rehearsal of
recent Middle East history is impeccable."
The Spectator
"Rogan's brilliant book is clear-eyed and balanced. Mixing academic
rigour with a lively narrative style, The Arabs: A History is
required reading for anyone seeking to understand the background to
the mess that the Arabs find themselves in."
The Scotsman (UK)
"An incredibly ambitious book... wonderfully inclusive and
articulate and knowledgeable, pretty much indispensable."
The Times (UK)
"[The Arabs], which starts with the Ottoman Turks' conquest of the
Arab world in 1516-17, offers a strikingly vivid and authoritative
account of its subsequent experience... [Rogan's] rehearsal of
recent Middle East history is impeccable."
Dallas Morning News
"Rogan manages the somewhat staggering feat of outlining nearly 500
years of history in a way that is neither cursory nor overwhelming
- and is based in the experiences of the people themselves....
[Rogan's] ability to gather and synthesize such a wealth of
information, showing both the humanity and malice present on all
sides, while neither bowing to nor accepting conventional wisdom,
is truly remarkable. It's to be hoped that America's decision
makers get their hands on a copy of The Arabs - and take very good
notes."
Foreign Affairs
"Readable and reliable, this sweeping survey balances the unity of
a coherent story with due attention to detail. As such, Rogan's
contribution belongs in the company of the earlier classics by
Hitti and Hourani."
Avi Shlaim, author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World
"Eugene Rogan writes about the Middle East with exceptional
empathy, wisdom, and insight. His book is a landmark in scholarship
on this complex and controversial region. Western scholars have
written extensively about the Middle East but mostly from the
outside looking in. The Arabs often feature in their accounts as
mere driftwood on the sea of international affairs. Rogan, by
contrast, has narrated the history of the region over the last five
centuries from the inside looking out. He tells the history of the
Arabs from their own perspective, using an impressive range of
Arabic sources. It is a fascinating story and in Eugene Rogan it
has found its most gifted chronicler."
Sir Alistair Horne, author of A Savage War of Peace
"Anyone who seeks to understand why the Islamic world bears a
grudge against the West should read The Arabs. Few scholars know
their subject better than Eugene Rogan, while even fewer are
capable of rendering so complex a subject so engagingly readable.
It is a joy to open, and a deprivation to put down."
Margaret MacMillan, author of Paris 1919 and Nixon and Mao
"With eloquence, verve, and understanding, Eugene Rogan rightly
reminds us that the world, and the Arabs themselves, need to
remember the past. If we are to build a better relationship between
the Arab world and the West, if we are to avoid making the same
mistakes again and again, we need to know Arab history from its
many high points to its low ones. I can think of no better guide on
this crucially important journey than The Arabs."
Kirkus
"A straightforward, careful primer on Arab political history from
the rise of the Ottoman Empire to the forging of modern
fundamentalist Islamic entities.... A sweeping history."
Booklist
"Framing modern history as viewed from the Arab world, Rogan
eruditely furnishes Western readers with a background to current
events."
The Atlantic
"[Rogan] provides a prism through which the lay Westerner can view
five centuries of tumult, zealotry, and complication.... Deeply
erudite and distinctly humane, Rogan consistently plays up (and
never papers over) the bountiful East-West parallels."
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies, Columbia
University
"A masterful, thorough, and well-written survey of the entire sweep
of modern Arab history. Full of lively vignettes but comprehensive
at the same time, this book will be of great interest both to
general readers and students of the Arab world."
Juan Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History,
University of Michigan and author of Engaging the Muslim World
"No better guide to the modern history of the Arab world could be
found than Eugene Rogan. He is attentive as much to the insider
accounts in Arab memoirs as to the imperial schemes hatched in
drawing rooms in Paris and London, as concerned with popular
movements and uprisings as with elite reformism, and unafraid to
confront directly and with the best evidence and documentation
available the vexed issues of colonialism, Orientalism, and the
Arab-Israeli conflict. Rogan achieves a rare, and realistic
synoptic vision of the way in which Arabness has been shaped by
both indigenous forces and Western imperial ones. In recent years,
the United States has attempted to rule Arabs while carefully
avoiding knowing anything about them, a strategy that has yielded
all too predictable results. Those in the West who aspire to engage
the Arab world in more productive ways in the future will find
Rogan an indispensable companion."
Stephen M. Walt, ForeignPolicy.com
"[A]n entertaining, gracefully written, and eye-opening look at a
diverse people whose history, culture and character are often badly
misunderstood (if not actively distorted) here in the United
States. Read it. You'll learn a lot."
Simon Sebag Montefiore, for the Financial Times
"A rich, galloping narrative that spans the Arab world from Morocco
to Yemen to Iraq... Rogan's The Arabs: A History is an outstanding,
gripping and exuberant narrative, full of flamboyant character
sketches, witty asides and magisterial scholarship, that explains
much of what we need to know about the world today." The Sunday
Telegraph (UK)
"Very much a modern history... Rogan gives a lucid account of
political developments throughout the Arab lands, unpicking messy
tangles such as the Lebanese civil war or the fragmentation of
Palestinian political movements."The Guardian (UK)
"The vivid narrative of The Arabs is... eloquent, and compulsively
readable."
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies, Columbia
University
"A masterful, thorough, and well-written survey of the entire sweep
of modern Arab history. Full of lively vignettes but comprehensive
at the same time, this book will be of great interest both to
general readers and students of the Arab world."
Juan Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History,
University of Michigan and author of "Engaging the Muslim
World"
"No better guide to the modern history of the Arab world could be
found than Eugene Rogan. He is attentive as much to the insider
accounts in Arab memoirs as to the imperial schemes hatched in
drawing rooms in Paris and London, as concerned with popular
movements and uprisings as with elite reformism, and unafraid to
confront directly and with the best evidence and documentation
available the vexed issues of colonialism, Orientalism, and the
Arab-Israeli conflict. Rogan achieves a rare, and realistic
synoptic vision of the way in which Arabness has been shaped by
both indigenous forces and Western imperial ones. In recent years,
the United States has attempted to rule Arabs while carefully
avoiding knowing anything about them, a strategy that has yielded
all too predictable results. Those in the West who aspire to engage
the Arab world in more productive ways in the future will find
Rogan an indispensable companion."
Avi Shlaim, author of "The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab
World"
"Eugene Rogan writes about the Middle East with exceptional
empathy, wisdom, and insight. His book is a landmark in scholarship
on this complex and controversial region. Western scholars have
written extensively about the Middle East but mostly from the
outside looking in. The Arabs often feature in their accounts as
mere driftwood on the sea of international affairs. Rogan, by
contrast, has narrated the history of the region over the last five
centuries from the inside looking out. He tells the history of the
Arabs from t
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