The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs (Edward Burlingame Book) [Paperback]

David Pryce-Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 16, 2009 | Series: Edward Burlingame Book

As the violence of the Middle East has come to America, many Westerners are stunned and confounded by this new form of mayhem that appears to be a feature of Arab societies. This important book explains how Arabs are closed in a circle defined by tribal, religious, and cultural traditions. David Pryce-Jones examines the forces which “drive the Arabs in their dealings with each other and with the West.” In the postwar world, he argues, the Arabs reverted to age-old tribal and kinship structures, from which they have been unable to escape. In tribal society, loyalty is extended to close kin and other members of the tribe. The successful nation-state—the model that Westerners understand—generates broader loyalties, but the tribal world has no institutions that have evolved by common consent for the general good. Those who seek power achieve it by plotting secretly and ruthlessly eliminating their rivals. In the Arab world, violence is systemic. "This is a healthy corrective, a thought-provoking study. And Mr. Pryce-Jones has done his research, bringing a wealth of reading to his task; the book is extensively documented, with a good section of reference notes."—David K. Shipler, New York Times Book Review. "Acute insights into how the Middle East works, or fails to work. This is definitely a book to be read, if also one to be thought about carefully and rather critically."—David Morgan, Times Literary Supplement.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Following the end of colonial rule in the Middle East, the newly independent Arab nations did not become progressive and free: they are despotic; most persecute religious or ethnic minorities; all oppress women; none has participatory institutions. In a scathing and provocative critique, Pryce-Jones ( Paris in the Third Reich ; Cyril Connolly ) blames these dismal conditions on what he sees as a Muslim reversion to tribal and kinship structures as well as slavish obedience to complex codes of honor and shame that prevent concepts such as open debate, democracy and accountability from taking root. With Islamocentric shortsightedness, Arabs understood Nazism in terms of German revenge for humiliation suffered in World War I. Arab leaders admired both Hitler and Lenin as careerist conspirators who made good. Pryce-Jones sees the same tribal, king-of-the-hill mentality at work today in the Palestine Liberation Organization, a careerist group built around a few audacious personalities who arrogated the right to speak for a whole people.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Reporter Pryce-Jones examines shame-honor ranking as a motivational force in Muslim society vying with Western values, while at the same time tracing the negative impact of Europe on Muslim society. The book facilitates an understanding of the Middle East, and the author has provided copious source notes to support his statements. He cites the diversion of efforts from country and institutional goals to serve personal and tribal religious careerism, and concludes that Arabs don't fit into Western organizing principles. This is an ambitious book that ranges widely over recent Middle Eastern history, but its negativity inspires a sense of futility as to the future, and leaves one wondering whether the conclusions drawn are correct.
- Pat Wollter, Sonoma State Univ. Lib., Rohnert Park, Cal .
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee (February 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566638267
• ISBN-13: 978-1566638265
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #245,910 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

197 of 209 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Closed Circle, indeed., August 4, 2000

By 

Sergio Flores (Orange, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs (Paperback)

This book is a very distressing work. The author starts with a thesis and never lets go, analyzing almost every aspect of his chosen subject --the Arabs-- from social, political, sexual, literary, artistic, and other perspectives, reaching the conclusion that people are what they are, and that our attempts at rationalizing the behavior of societies that are totally alien to our own must end in absolute disapointment if not outright exasperation. The cultural weight of centuries rests on the Arabs and Pryce-Jones uncovers layer after layer of myth, folklore, history, lies, and the western folly of seeing Western problems and solutions mirrored in Arab realities, projecting onto a different people sets of values and accepted norms of behavior that are just not part of their lives. For the first time I have read an author that tells me something I suspected from my admittedly limited dealings with Arabs in 12 years: they understand power, but democracy escapes them as an absurdity. Any sort of sexual liberation that goes beyond the cosmetic (and even that is pushing it) is not bound to happen any time soon in the Arab world. Without it, any sort of "democracy" they may have will never be more than a mirage, a photocopy of the original. Their family lives are deeply dictatorial, and so is their social life. They will abase themselves in front of those seen as superiors, and they will humiliate those seen as inferiors. Any other treatment is alien. This is what makes this book disturbing: I have read other books on the subject and I see the coverage of news from that area of the world, and now I realize how deeply wrong those assessments are. Pryce-Jones understands politics in the Arab world as power-plays and power-grabs. He is right. The sooner we realize that, the easier it will be to deal with this reality. There are errors. The worst one is that the author insists on putting Arabs, Turks, and Persians in the same bag. They may, overall, share a common religion, even considering the Shi'a- Sunni rift, and the many other divisions inside the Muslim world (Alawites and Druzes being just a part of this deeply divided group), but they are not the same people. The book is subtitled "An interpretation of the Arabs": it should have been exactly that and leave Turks and Persians alone or, if the author really wanted to include these other peoples, the subtitle should have been changed. Also, the actor Omar Sharif is described as "not an Arab, but a Coptic Christian." Well, there are plenty of Arabs who are also Christians. Sharif is an Egyptian. That makes him an Arab. End of the argument. Still, these points are not enough to demerit a very courageous work that dares to present the views of the author as they are. These views, I feel, are very much true.

81 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars accurate, January 19, 2001

By 

Ahamd Hosni - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs (Paperback)

This book is a great book that will anger most of the arab readers. They will call it biases, bigotted & racist. However as an egyptian who lives in egypt, I believe that the author made it very clear & accurate; in a typical british style it's sharply critical & t-the-point. What the author said was nothing new to me; I was always wondering what makes the arabs so different after all these years with contacts with other cultures & all that money that some enjoy. I came to the same conclusions that the author came two. It's damn right! His appraoch is simple & clear, though not very scientific; and it lacks the comparative approach.

118 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Whither the Promised Freedom?, December 5, 2001

By 

Big Dave (Boise, Idaho) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs (Paperback)

Pryce-Jones explores the question why there are no modern Arab liberal democracies.

He finds the answer in Arab social and political culture, specifically:

1. TRIBALISM. Pryce-Jones argues that Arab culture doesn't encourage Arabs to identify themselves as members of a state, but as members of a family or tribe. Arab political life therefore consists of a multitude of warring factions, none of whom seeks the good of the nation as a whole. As Karl Popper might describe it, they ask only the personal question "Who should rule?" (and answer: "I should!") and never ask the more fundamental institutional question "How should power be organized?"

2. THE SHAME / HONOR SYSTEM. Arabs place great weight on perceptions of their honor. This consideration therefore often trumps all others and results in behavior that looks, to western eyes, like insanity.

An example is the Aswan dam. Nasser announces that he will build the dam and that it will be a great thing, thereby committing his honor to its construction and success. Therefore, when his own experts tell him that the dam is a bad idea (it will disrupt agriculture, increase the spread of some diseases, etc.), he suppresses the information and does not back down. When the Eisenhower administration revokes the promised funding for the dam (because it's a bad idea), Nasser's honor has committed him so fully to the dam that he reverses his foreign policy 180 degrees and cuddles up to the Soviet Union to get it done. And when the dam, as predicted, turns out to be a curse rather than a blessing, Nasser goes on shouting its virtues.

3. THE POWER-CHALLENGE DIALECTIC. You're either in power in the Arab world, in which case you're paranoid and watching your subordinates and allies as closely as your enemies, or you're no, in which case you lurk in the shadows, plot and scheme until your hand is ready and you make your move to challenge the power holder. There is no notion of shared power, no notion of purely institutional power.

THEREFORE...

The result is that calls for democracy, like calls for socialism, Palestinian independence and even repentance and return to the true tenets of Islam, are bogus. They mask what would otherwise be naked grabs for power by an individual or a tribal group. The Arabs are constantly and consistently betrayed by their leaders.

Note that this is NOT a book about Islam. Pryce-Jones explicitly argues that this Arab culture pre-dates Islam and that Islam itself is often used as a tool or a pretext in power challenges (as in Wahhabism, for instance).