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75 of 88 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Flawed but still good., September 5, 2001
This review is from: God Has Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting from a Militant Middle East (Paperback)
I have read David Pryce-Jones review of Miller's book and, although I agree with Pryce-Jones that Miller misses the real root of the problems that plague the badly-named "Middle East," I do not share the British author's severity of judgement. "God has ninety-nine names" is, before anything, a series of photographs in words. The reader will not get the depth that a profound analysis of the region should have, but we are trading the scholarly insights of a historian (and Miller is not a historian) for the immediacy of a reporter. I found several problems with this book, but none was so grave as to make me change my strong recommendation. Miller writes with the typical attitude (it has been called arrogance sometimes) of those who come from the developed Western world and marvel or gasp at the way the unwashed masses of the Third World behave. She equates westernization with modernization and both with progress, and in the Middle East there is cosmetic westernization, shallow modernization, and scant progress, with the exception of the State of Israel, an altogether different sort of bird in a very dismal aviary. When confronted with the harsh reality of strong men impossing their will on their subjects, and whole countries going macho and abusing their women (and those women in many cases applauding and encouraging such attitudes), then Miller seems to understand that she is in a different world, one that never knew of chivalry, or the Renaissance, or the French Revolution until those concepts and philosophies were imported to the area by Europe. The Middle East then appears as a dangerous place where secular and not-so-secular governments, some allied to the West, some its declared enemies, fight mostly vicious little wars against the religious militants who want to overthrow them and impose Shari'a throughout the Islamic world. The level of nastiness seems to have gone down, curiously, in Iran, where Shari'a is supposed to be working since the Shah left. Miller writes chapters on ten countries, including Sudan, Egypt, Israel, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. That the only country in the region where fundamentalists can participate politically as opposition, elect mayors, and run their show mostly as they see fit, is Israel, should not surprise anyone. That as soon as they acquire power (as in Sudan and Iran) fundamentalists make it practically impossible for others to be critical, except in open rebellion, should not be a surprise, either. Miller describes the area well, and her sense of being in the middle of things, plus the importance of the reporting, adds to the immediacy of the information we get. It would have been interesting to have chapters on Iraq, Turkey, and the Gulf States, but what she covers is well represented. I do not remember if Miller states that she speaks and/or reads Arabic, but the impression I got is that she can do neither. If this is the case, it would only show that, even though she reports candidly and helpfully, her understanding and vision must be limited. Pryce-Jones, of course, is right: power, and power defined and limited by honor and shame, are the key. Miller finally lets us get a glimpse of this phenomenon in her chapter on Jordan, where honor, shame, and conspiracy theories have prominence in pages 354-5. Her "Conclusions" chapter is special, since some of her opinions expressed before on the book, are refuted with a very politically-correct jab at the U.S. and its democracy, free markets, and (naturally) materialism. This is an uneven but valid work that should get the reader interested in the region. If that is the case, let me recommend "The Closed Circle: an interpretation of the Arabs," by David Pryce-Jones; "The Arab Predicament," by Fouad Ajami; "Among the Believers" and "Beyond Belief," both by V.S. Naipaul; and any book by Bernard Lewis.
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24 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fascinating Resource, December 4, 2000
This review is from: God Has Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting from a Militant Middle East (Paperback)
Anyone drawn to study history, culture or politics will find this book well worth the read. I was drawn by the sub-title, "Reporting from a Militant Middle East" because I've long felt the need to get some sort of understanding of the religious, social and political complexities to be found in the Middle East. This was the perfect book to meet that need. Miller writing style is understandable and approachable. Her commitment to detail is unwavering, and because of that, one walks away with the feeling of really having learned well what she had to teach from her 20 years of experience as a reporter in the Middle East. Finally, a single source to unravel the mysteries of so many separate and yet, connected, Islamic groups - some with influence throughout the Middle East, others that are very specific to certain cultures and countries. This book has made my list of Favorite Books of All Time.
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18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Short Course for the Previously Uninformed, November 7, 2001
This review is from: God Has Ninety-Nine Names: Reporting from a Militant Middle East (Paperback)
A good overview of the forces that have shaped militant Islamic movements in the Middle East & North Africa over the last several decades, along with a brief history of about a dozen countries in the region. Although I can appreciate some of the criticisms leveled at Ms. Miller by other Amazon reviewers ("lacks depth" - e.g., it's a different read than something by Robert Kaplan), "God Has Ninety-Nine Names" does provide those who know relatively little about the region with an opportunity to quickly learn about the history of, and pre-1996 developments in, countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, etc. If you don't have the time to delve deeply into the history of the region and its religions, politics, economics, etc., spending a week reading this book will still afford you a much more intelligent analysis of what you're viewing on television nightly. Although some Amazon reviewers have been highly critical of Ms. Miller and her NY Times pedigree, Ms. Miller, who lived and worked in the region for 25 years and was the Times' Cairo bureau chief, has assembled a relatively cohesive work using an array of interviews with the region's most notable political and religious figures. I think she is to be commended for her effort and for not being afraid to be critical of certain things that are happening in the Muslim world. Contrary to what some reviewers thought about her Arabic, I got the impression from the book that she did speak Arabic as well as French, but perhaps not fluently (thus the use of translaters for some of her interviews). One drawback is that the book was published in 1996 and thus omits a discussion of developments since that time.
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