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Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey [Paperback]

Fouad Ajami
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)

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Book Description

June 29, 1999 Vintage
From Fouad Ajami, an acclaimed author and chronicler of Arab politics, comes a compelling account of how a generation of Arab intellectuals tried to introduce cultural renewals in their homelands through the forces of modernity and secularism. Ultimately, they came to face disappointment, exile, and, on occasion, death. Brilliantly weaving together the strands of a tumultuous century in Arab political thought, history, and poetry, Ajami takes us from the ruins of Beirut's once glittering metropolis to the land of Egypt, where struggle rages between a modernist impulse and an Islamist insurgency, from Nasser's pan-Arab nationalist ambitions to the emergence of an uneasy Pax Americana in Arab lands, from the triumphalism of the Gulf War to the continuing anguished debate over the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords.

For anyone who seeks to understand the Middle East, here is an insider's unflinching analysis of the collision between intellectual life and political realities in the Arab world today.

Frequently Bought Together

Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey + The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice since 1967 (Canto original series) + A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict  (6th Edition)
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Arab world, writes Palestinian scholar Fouad Ajami, has been beset for years by divisions: religious, social, economic, and political. Many of these divisions came to the fore during the time of the Persian Gulf War, a "foreigners' rescue" in response to Saddam Hussein's attempt to seize Kuwait, which was, Ajami hints, in part a reaction against Iranian designs on the Gulf. Even those Arab intellectuals who supported Allied intervention at the time are now questioning whether it was the best solution to what they believe was a local problem. Ajami writes of the role of some of these intellectuals in shaping the culture of the region, among them the Lebanese writer Khalil Hawi, who committed suicide in the wake of Israel's invasion of his country in 1982. He also examines the terror that religious fundamentalists have been visiting on secular states such as Egypt, "a country with a remarkable record of political stability" that, Ajami believes, will be able to ride out the present storm. Ajami's essays will be most revealing for students of contemporary politics and Arabic history. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In the mid-20th century, a visionary generation of Arab writers and intellectuals attempted to blend the best of "Arab heritage" with that of "contemporary Western civilization and culture" to create an enlightened "Arab awakening." In this nuanced, rich and accessible amalgamation of literary criticism, history and political commentary, Ajami, professor of Middle Eastern studies at Johns Hopkins, explores the origin of this dream and its almost complete destruction by the rise of Islamic extremism in the last 25 years. Drawing on the lives and the work of the most influential Arab writers born after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Ajami traces dramatic examples of how these writers' personal ordeals often spoke to a wider generational theme?the shift from creative idealism to disappointment with increasingly rigid political structures. He starts with a very specific example, that of Lebanese poet and Arab nationalist Khalil Hawi, who was so disillusioned with "Arab enlightenment" and so devastated by Israel's June 6, 1982, invasion of Lebanon that he killed himself that very day. Other sections deal with the reactions of other writers to Ayatollah Khomeini's theocracy; to the 1981 assassination of Anwar al-Sadat; to the 1994 stabbing of novelist Naguib Mahfuz by Islamic extremists; to the importation of Western consumerism rather than Western humanism; and to Israel. Though the "dream palace of the Arabs" is a complex, enormous, sometimes arcane structure, Ajami's cogent distillation of the works and politics of Arab writers offers even the most general reader a cohesive and illuminating cultural history.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Books Ed edition (June 29, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0375704744
  • ISBN-13: 978-0375704741
  • Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 0.9 x 9.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #753,640 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Fouad Ajami is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the cochair of the Herbert and Jane Dwight Working Group on Islamism and the International Order. From 1980 to 2011 he was director of Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of The Arab Predicament, Beirut: City of Regrets, The Dream Palace of the Arabs, and The Foreigner's Gift. His most recent publication is The Syrian Rebellion (Hoover Institution Press, 2012). His writings also include some four hundred essays on Arab and Islamic politics, US foreign policy, and contemporary international history. Ajami has received numerous awards, including the Benjamin Franklin Award for public service (2011), the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism (2011), the Bradley Prize (2006), the National Humanities Medal (2006), and the MacArthur Fellows Award (1982). His research has charted the road to 9/11, the Iraq war, and the US presence in the Arab-Islamic world.

Customer Reviews

Still, the work is well worth a serious read for any student of the Middle East. J. A Magill  |  3 reviewers made a similar statement
It's a lot more interesting than I'm making it sound, though. Caraculiambro  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
46 of 47 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars a look inside December 22, 2001
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
(...) I know very little about Arabic literature and poetry, and I have not read extensively about the "Middle East." Once the bar is set at that level, however, I found this book quite approachable.

The Dream Palace of the Arabs focusses on a particular time and space in the Arab world--the brief rise of Nasserism and nationalism generally and its subsequent collapse into bitterness. There is much great contemporary relavance in this 1998 work.

Ajami gives us Beirut and Lebanon, both before and during the terrible war; and he takes us into its rich literary world. He discusses the First and Second Gulf Wars [Iran-Iraq war and Desert Storm], explains the subtext of shia/sunni conflict, tells us a bit about Kuwait and a great deal about Saddam Hussein.

My favorite part of the book is the chapter "In the Land of Egypt." The last chapter "The Orphaned Peace" takes us to the heart of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, post-Oslo to the birth of the Palestinian Authority. Despite the tragedies and sorrows encountered in this book, I was left hopeful for peace.

Not conventional history I suppose, but a fine intellectual history of the last half-century in the Arab world. Inspires me to read some Naguib Mahfuz, where I go next on my journey through amazon...

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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Obituary for a modernizing generation September 28, 2004
Format:Paperback
The extremism that seems to pervade the Middle East is neither the region's predestined endpoint nor is it a historical inevitability-rather, it is a condition that sprung out from the failure of a great generation of reformers and free-thinkers that lived in the middle of the twentieth century, and whose passing away by the 1990s marked the triumph of theocracy and backwardness in the Middle East.

"The Dream Palace of the Arabs" is the sequel to the "Arab Predicament," which Fouad Ajami, a Lebanese professor at Johns Hopkins, published in 1980; back then, Mr. Ajami was younger and "approached [his] material more eager to judge." In the "Arab Predicament," he bemoaned the Arab political experience; in "The Dream Place of the Arabs" he tries to "appreciate what had gone into the edifice that Arabs had built."

This literary journey chronicles the birth of a generation of modernizing Arabs that fought and lost the case for modernity. The history of the past seventy years is narrated through the life of authors and their works-what they wrote, how the societies around them reacted, and how the political condition merged with their literary expression, only to suppress it and silence it.

As a parallel history, "The Dream Palace of the Arabs" could accompany any book. But in looking at the literary interplay between modernizing authors and their surroundings, Mr. Ajami has not only dug deeper in his probe of what brought about the present Arab political condition, but has analyzed the issue on a whole other level.

The reader who is familiar with Middle Eastern history will not feel burdened by the material. The refreshing tone and approach allows Mr.
... Read more ›
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40 of 43 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful examination of the modern Middle East December 9, 2002
Format:Paperback
Because he lacks the flash and skill at sound bites of some of his more well known colleagues and does not crave to spend time on CNN, Professor Ajami?s work is frequently overlooked. That is a great loss for everyone trying to understand the Arab world, particularly in these times of growing tension and violence.

Ajami asks a profound and much debated question, why did modernity seem to pass the Arab world by? ?Scholars,? such as Edward Said, argue that everything is the fault of the West and imperialism and that nothing intrinsic in Middle Eastern and Islamic culture deserve the blame. In contrast, Ajami takes seriously the fact that prior to the enlightenment, Islamic society was both intellectually and materially superior to West. Indeed, after World War II, with a fair number of Western educated citizens and a burgeoning middle class, many observers say the Middle East having a bright future, likely brighter in fact, than those currently economic and political successes, South Korea, Tiwan, and the other ?asian tigers.? What then, went wrong? Ajami points to Arab society never internalizing the nation state and that democratic values never gained currency beyond a small clique of intellectuals. Instead, such modern political ideas were seen as imperialist impositions, given little more than lip service.

I disagree with Ajami on several points, most notably his rosy predictions for Egypt. Still, the work is well worth a serious read for any student of the Middle East.

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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Not Really History December 5, 2001
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I do not mean to imply by the title of this review that Ajami's book is "false" or polemical. Rather, I intend to warn readers that _The Dream Palace of the Arabs_ it is not a work of chronological accounting and crisp historical analysis.

Instead, it is impressionistic and non-linear. Events are narrated as episodes in the life or from the perspective of a certain poet or political figure. This gives the book a dreamy, subjective quality. This, surely, is the point: not to answer a specific historical question, but to tell the tale of "a generation's odyssey", as the book's subtitle has it.

The result is effective and haunting in its sense of disillusionment and frustration, and I recommend the book highly.

The one caveat I offer is that the reader will get much more out of this book if s/he has already read at least some Middle Eastern history, and preferably a fair amount.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Visions & Mirages
An interesting and cogent analysis of the emerging fault lines that pit liberalism, authoritianism and religious fundamentalism against each other in the Levant, made even more... Read more
Published 20 months ago by L. King
5.0 out of 5 stars ONE OF THE MOST ILLUMINATING BOOKS
One of the most illuminating books I read recently. Ajami analyses the socio-political events that define the Arab modern public psyche. Read more
Published on December 29, 2010 by Tarek
5.0 out of 5 stars The Writer's Gift
Dr. Ajami offers readers his erudition and wisdom, a rare combination. His observations on the Middle East and on the social psychology of modern Arab letters should be required... Read more
Published on January 18, 2008 by Bubba Souffle
5.0 out of 5 stars The Failed Awakening
This book is an absorbing blend of history and literary criticism. A somewhat melancholy narrative of the political and economic failure of the Arab World in the 20th century, it... Read more
Published on October 23, 2005 by Pieter Uys
5.0 out of 5 stars engaging
Perhaps Ajami's best: a legendary (and, for some, inconveniently seminal) text in the field of Middle Eastern studies and Arab psychology.

Mr. Read more
Published on May 5, 2005 by Caraculiambro
1.0 out of 5 stars Uncle Tom
As was written by another "(Fouad Ajami) has no axe to grind unlike Ed (sic) Said". True anough Ajami is far too busy being a perfect hound fetching and in his case... Read more
Published on December 19, 2003 by Toshie Ishii O' Grady
3.0 out of 5 stars It was OK
A lot of the subject matter is poets and intellectuals in
the Arab countries and the extent to which they reflect the attitudes on a number of related subjects - secular vs... Read more
Published on December 27, 2002 by "gabed"
5.0 out of 5 stars A fresh look at the Dream Palace of the Arabs
This well-written book, first published in 1998, deserves a fresh reading. The book provides a good perspective and some answers for many of the questions that came up in the... Read more
Published on June 17, 2002 by hapixii
3.0 out of 5 stars Requiem for Pan-Arabism
Dream Palace of the Arabs : A Generation's Odyssey is a fascinating, sad look at a lost generation of Arab intellectuals. Read more
Published on June 4, 2002 by Glenn M. Frazier
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