Dictionary of the Middle East [Hardcover]

Dilip Hiro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 1996

The term 'Middle East' conjures up a multitude of images and concepts in the western mind. Sand dunes, camels, nomads. Gushing oil wells. Saddam Hussein. Terrorists, assassins, hostage-takers. Babylon. Islamic fundamentalism. OPEC. Bombed-out Beirut. Women under the veil. Jerusalem, the Holy. The Gulf Wars. The Islamic dome and minarets. The Promised Land. The Pyramids. Yasser Arafat. The Church of the Nativity. Oil Sheikhs loaded with petro-dollars. Teeming Cairo. Arabs and Jews fighting. Ayatollah Khomeini. Arabic calligraphy. Suicide bombers. Bearded Jews in black coats. The Bible. Kibbutzim. Kurds, Shias, Orthodox Jews, Maronites, Bahais, Sunnis, Zionism. Dilip Hiro, the author of several books on the region, has written a general purpose dictionary of the Middle East. Containing almost 1000 entries, it deals lucidly and objectively, with an impressive variety of images, events, ideologies, natural resources, religious sects and organisations. From 'al' to 'Azerbaijan', 'Bible' to 'Byblos', 'semiotic languages' to 'sufism', 'the peace process' to 'Protestant Church', the dictionary covers all you would ever want to know about the Middle East. Thorough and cool-headed, the dictionary will prove indispensable not only to journalists, academics, diplomats, business people and students but also to all travellers to the region.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If ever there were a region of the world in need of a comprehensive dictionary, the Middle East would be that place. With over 1,000 entries, Dilip Hiro makes sense of one of the most volatile, complex, and highly disputed of turfs. From "Aal" to "Zoroastrians," the dictionary covers the Arab-Israeli Wars, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, literary personalities, and hostages. There are clear explanations of ethnic groups, political ideologies, tourist destinations, and 14 country profiles. Hiro's book is a remarkable reference, adding lucidity to a region traditionally enshrouded in conflict and misunderstanding. Devoid of any noticeable bias, all sides are represented with rigorous attention to accuracy and clarity. All this plus a comprehensive index makes Hiro's dictionary unusually valuable to students, journalists, business people, inquisitive travelers, and anyone else who wishes to get a handle on the Middle East. --Stephanie Gold --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Hiro, a prolific author (The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict, Desert Shield to Desert Storm, Holy Wars: The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism), journalist, and radio-TV commentator on the Middle East, has compiled a much-needed reference work on this volatile region. In more than 1,000 alphabetically arranged entries, varying in length from a few lines to a few pages, he covers more than 150 personalities in politics, business, culture, and religion; places of religious and cultural significance; oil and other minerals; political and religious sects; economic infrastructure; and political and religious ideologies. The text--descriptive more than interpretive--is preceded by maps as of selected dates (e.g., "Palestine 1947--UN Partition Plan" ; "Jerusalem 1947--UN Administration Plan" ). The November 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is noted. The text includes many see references; individual entries are replete with qv references. The thorough index similarly includes numerous see references.

Because it records many of the changes in the Middle East in the twentieth century, Hiro will provide academic and public libraries with a most useful complement to Ziring's The Middle East: A Political Dictionary (ABC-Clio, 1992), which is topically arranged. Unfortunately, neither Hiro nor Ziring has a bibliography.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 383 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (May 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312125542
• ISBN-13: 978-0312125547
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,589,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Gross biases cleverly hidden, September 3, 2003

By 

Gary Selikow (Great Kush) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dictionary of the Middle East (Hardcover)

Commentary on this book has been that it is not biased and that it is balanced and impartial.
In fact, when one looks at the words used and the facts that the author chooses to highlight, it becomes clear that this is not so.

If one reads this book, one has to be quite clear on this. In fact, the author of this work frequently lies by omission.
There is no way, that in this review, I could highlight, even the majority of the cases of this being done, I can merely give a few examples, of what permeates this entire work.

In the article on Menachem Begin, Hiro refers to `the terrorist activities of the Irgun', despite the fact that the Irgun always took the greatest care to avoid civilian casualties.
And yet he never uses the word `terrorist' or `terrorism' to refer to organizations such as the PLO, PFLP, Hamas, Hizbollah etc, organizations whose main function has been to [destroy] Israeli men, women and children.

Under the article on the Irgun Zvai Leumi (the Jewish self-defence and liberation army) he refers to the Battle of Deir Yassin and claims that Jewish fighters `killed 254 men , women and children , two thirds of all inhabitants. They dynamited houses, looted and raped'. This tactic was effective, in the five weeks leading up to the establishment of Israel, some 300 000 Arabs fled from the areas included in the United Nations plan for a Jewish State'.
This is all totally untrue, and is nothing other than a blood libel.
The truth is that Deir Yassin was used by Arab forces to [destroy] Jews on the roads and in neighboring areas.
The Irgun and Lehi Jewish self defence forces, in capturing the village of strategic importance did what they could to avoid civilian casualties, at considerable risk to their own men.
Arab civillians where killed in the shelling between the two sides, because they had ignored the Irgun's warnings to leave the area.
There where no [pyhsical abuse]or looting, or any intentional killing of civilians.
These facts have been established.

Hiro also makes much reference to the massacre of Palestinians at Sabra and Shatilla, omitting the fact that this was a response to years of terror by the Palestinians against the Christians of Lebanon, including the 1975 massacre of the Christian village of Damour by PLO terrorists, in which thousands of Christian men , women and children where butchered.
Hiro does not refer to these events.

He also does not refer to the countless massacres of Israeli women and children by Arab terrorists such as the massacre of school children at Ma'alot in 1974.

He also ignores the fact that all Arab-Israeli wars where a direct result Arab attempts to destroy Israel and annihilate the Jews of Israel.
In the entry under Israel he refers to `an immediate war between Israel and its neighbors' as if the war just happened, not pointing out the fact that 5 Arab armies descended on Israel with the express purpose of wiping out the Jewish population there.

Similarly he ignores the fact that Israel only fought the Six Day War to stall advanced Arab attempts at another war of annihilation against Israel.

Hiro refers to the Yom Kippur War as an Arab bid to `regain lost territories', once again ignoring the truth that it was another Arab campaign of genocide against the Israeli people.

He also writes of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, as if it where an arbitrary act of aggression by Israel, when the truth is that Israel invaded Lebanon in response to years of Arab attacks into Israel from that country, in which hundreds of Jewish men, women and children where murdered.

The slanting of the truth in this book permeates the entire work, and the danger is that anyone not aware of the facts will be given a totally false picture.

5 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent reference for Politics Students, October 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dictionary of the Middle East (Paperback)

Hiro has successfully managed to create this wonderful dictionary of the Middle East, which students can turn to for reference and important information when needed. It has excellent explanations of important figures, concepts, and countries...excellent, excellent, excellent!!!

3 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Learning Tool, May 9, 2001

By 

The Old Hag (Bethesda, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dictionary of the Middle East (Paperback)

This book is great. It's not absolutely comprehensive. However, most things such as names and places that are easy to forget will be contained in this book for quick reference.

Examples: Irgun, Stern Gang, Haganah , ...PLO, PFLP, DFLP, Hamas as well as other Palestinian liberation organizations, ...World Zionist Organization, Revisionism, Zionism, Labor Zionism as well as other ... ideologies and organizations.

If you're like me and you like to always have the facts straight in your mind, which is impossible, this book will certainly serve as a great help in those moments of forgetfulness. Rather than having to go back through all the books you've read previously, what your looking for, the basic essentials, will most likely be contained in Dilip Hiro's Dictionary of the Middle East.

Great reference book. It is not biased....