Customer Reviews

Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Transformation of Islam in Postsocialist Bulgaria (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics)

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Okay, I'll admit I got halfway through then had to return this to the library, but I'm definitely buying this once I get a job and can buy myself a bookshelf!

Anyhow, what I've seen so far is more of the beautiful and thoughtful writing Ms. Ghodsee had in her last book, The Red Riviera: Gender, Tourism, and Postsocialism on the Black Sea. That last one was about the history of women in Bulgaria's tourist industry and how they adapted to new socioeconomic realities after the fall of the Soviet Union.

In this book, Ghodsee turns her eye to the Muslim Pomak people of Bulgaria, especially in the town of Madan. She outlines the changes they experienced after socialism, their differences with the Bulgarian population at large and sense of Muslim identity, and their turn towards Islam and interactions with international Muslim charities as they sought to address the endemic unemployment and poverty that resulted from the collapse of the local mining industries. As with her last book, Ghodsee writes clearly and with great detail, and I especially enjoy the anecdotes which which she frames her discussions, and the way in which she narrates her story as a whole. Well done.

An excellent book for advanced undergraduate classes and graduate seminars on Islam and gender, Islam after communism, postsocialist politics and the anthropology of Europe. The book examines the complex web of factors changing the face of Islam in Bulgaria today told through the lives of ordinary Muslim men and women in the first decade of the 21st century.