Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East [Paperback]

Rashid Khalidi (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 15, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0807002356 | ISBN-13: 978-0807002353 | Edition: First Edition

Begun as the United States moved its armed forces into Iraq, Rashid Khalidi's powerful and thoughtful new book examines the record of Western involvement in the region and analyzes the likely outcome of our most recent Middle East incursions. Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of the political and cultural history of the entire region as well as interviews and documents, Khalidi paints a chilling scenario of our present situation and yet offers a tangible alternative that can help us find the path to peace rather than Empire.

We all know that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Sadly, as Khalidi reveals with clarity and surety, America's leaders seem blindly committed to an ahistorical path of conflict, occupation, and colonial rule. Our current policies ignore rather than incorporate the lessons of experience. American troops in Iraq have seen first hand the consequences of U.S. led "democratization" in the region. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict seems intractable, and U.S. efforts in recent years have only inflamed the situation. The footprints America follows have led us into the same quagmire that swallowed our European forerunners. Peace and prosperity for the region are nowhere in sight.

This cogent and highly accessible book provides the historical and cultural perspective so vital to understanding our present situation and to finding and pursuing a more effective and just foreign policy.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Khalidi has produced an extremely valuable analysis of how and why the PLO made the decisions it did during that fateful summer of 1982. . .His generally objective, lucid and incisive account of PLO decision-making fills a critical void in the literature about the Israeli invasion.--Thomas Friedman, author of From Beirut to Jerusalem and Longitudes and Latitudes

Praise for Palestinian Identity:
Winner of the 1997 Albert Hourani Book Award

"A pathbreaking work of major importance. . . [Khalidi demonstrates] a complete mastery of the relevant literature in Arabic, Hebrew and Western sources."--Edward Said, author of Orientalism

Praise for Resurrecting Empire:

"Rashid Khalidi's extraordinary book is enormously relevant for our times, especially in light of America's growing involvement in the Middle East. Khalidi brings first hand knowledge and an extensive historical background to a topic where such insight is needed more than ever."--Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize, author of The Roaring Nineties

"If you are wondering why the United States is up to its ears in alligators in Iraq and is widely hated in the Arab world, read this impressive book. Unlike most so-called Middle East experts, Khalidi actually knows a great deal about the that region, which allows him to make a sophisticated and persuasive case that the Bush Administration's plan to re-make the Middle East at the end of a rifle barrel is delusional."--John J. Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago

About the Author

Rashid Khalidi is the author of seven books about the Middle East, including Palestinian Identity, Brokers of Deceit, Resurrecting Empire, The Iron Cage, and Sowing Crisis. His writing on Middle Eastern history and politics has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and many journals. For his work on the Middle East, Professor Khalidi has received fellowships and grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the American Research Center in Egypt, and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others. He is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University in New York and is editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press; First Edition edition (April 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807002356
• ISBN-13: 978-0807002353
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #275,397 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #65 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Colonialism & Post-Colonialism

More About the Author

Rashid Khalidi is the author of Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East(Beacon Press, 2013) and six other books about the Middle East--Sowing Crisis, The Iron Cage, Resurrecting Empire, Origins of Arab Nationalism, Under Siege, and the award-winning Palestinian Identity. He is the Edward Said Chair in Arab Studies at Columbia University and editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies. He has written more than eighty articles on Middle Eastern history and politics, including pieces in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and many journals. Professor Khalidi has received fellowships and grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the American Research Center in Egypt, and the Rockefeller Foundation; he was also the recipient of a Fulbright research award. Professor Khalidi has been a regular guest on numerous radio and TV shows, including All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, Morning Edition, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and Nightline.

Photo Credit: Alex Levac, 2011.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

131 of 157 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Stringently partisan, but well worth reading June 3, 2004

By Dennis Littrell HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Although I disagree with Professor Khalidi on a number of points, I want to make it clear at the outset that this is an excellent book, very well-written and edited, and driven with the sort of restrained passion that makes for a most interesting read. His command of the modern history of the Middle East is admirable and obvious.

But Khalidi is not a disinterested observer by any stretch of the imagination. He has an agenda, that of laying the blame for the backwardness of the Middle East at the doorstep of the West while championing the cause of the Islamic people of the region. He is especially passionate when presenting the case for the Palestinians. His outrage at the historical record of a brutal, exploitive, and hypocritical colonialism (was there any other kind?) by the West, especially Great Britain and France, fairly singes the pages. His disgust at the stupidity, mendacity, and narrow-mindedness of the current Bush administration is palpable.

What Khalidi does not do very well is offer the sort of forward-looking, balanced, and dispassionate critique that would lead to a solution to the trouble in the Middle East. He offers a first step toward a solution to the problem in Iraq, namely that of a multilaterally-guided transition to a sovereign Iraq as opposed to the current bilateralism of the United States and Great Britain. Along the way he points out that it was the Western powers who concocted the artificial Iraqi state in the first place, and it was the Cold War US government that supported Saddam Hussein and helped him to brutalize the Iraqi people. However he does not offer specifics on how a recurrence of a Baathist-like dictatorship, or a civil war, or a Shiite theocracy (or all three in succession) can be avoided after the Western powers leave. Furthermore in the seething chapter on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict he offers no solution at all, merely a call for "real" negotiations toward a solution, with the implication that the solution he has in mind is not for public consumption. The very title of his chapter, "The United States and Palestine" hints at his attitude toward Israel and what his solution might be.

What Khalidi does not see (and in his way is as blind as the neocons in the White House) is that the United States and Israel and others have their interests as well. It is one thing to cite history and its inequities; it is another thing to realize that regardless of the mistakes made in the past, we have the present to deal with, and that any solution in the Middle East will require that the interests of people alive today be acknowledged and taken into consideration. Just as a military "victory" over Saddam Hussein is no solution to the problems the Iraqi people and the region face, neither is any "shut up and go home" solution going to work for the rest of the world. Certainly the US is not going to allow Israel to be overrun, nor are we, rightly or wrongly, going to sit by quietly while an Iran-like theocracy bent on acquiring nuclear weapons and exporting its Islamic rule, mushrooms out of the debris in Iraq. It is not just realpolitik but realism itself that dictates that the world cannot allow an unbridled Islamic radicalism of the sort that exists in Iran, or even worse, of the sort that had taken over Afghanistan, to expand.

Khalidi argues strongly that the US hasn't paid sufficient attention to "the region's political dynamics" or given the "Middle Eastern realities" the seriousness they deserve (p. 165). I think he's right; however the same could be said about his non-awareness of the global realities.

For all his learnedness and his sharply candid expression, unfortunately I see in Khalidi's overall tone and approach the partisan politician more than I see the historian or the political scientist. Typical is this from page 172 (and elsewhere): "Iraqis and others in the Middle East have a strong sense of history." (And other people don't?) This vague and superior sound-byte pronouncement from on high reminds me unhappily of what politicians in the US are fond of doing, that is, telling us what "the American people" think.

Carrying this historical burden (that Khalidi seems to think the Iraqi people are especially saddled with) to an absurdity (still on page 172), he objects to what he sees as "a symbolic contingent of Mongolian soldiers" as part of the US-led coalition in Iraq. He believes their presence may provoke "vividly the history of earlier occupations of Baghdad, such as that in 1258 when it was sacked by the Mongols"! Yes, that's 1258.

Bottom line: partisan, passionate, even prejudicial, but very much worth reading.

69 of 82 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The book Bush should have read June 1, 2004

By Jon Hunt

Format:Hardcover

When an administration clothes itself in secrecy, oblivious to the history of a region before charging into war, it runs the risk of failure. As Rashid Khalidi carefully explains, this is exactly what is happening in Iraq and the consequences will long be felt. "Resurrecting Empire" is a hard-hitting critique of a White House that has gotten us into a mess with no end in sight. It is a timely book exposing the naivete of leaders with tunnel vision.

The author writes with a serious and often weighty pen; this is not a book to be read in one sitting. Khalidi effectively lays out the history of the region, the strategic importance of oil, the Palestinian/Israeli situation and America's reactions and responses to what has happened in the Middle East prior to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and what the ramifications may be. I found those chapters about oil and Palestine to be the most fascinating sections of the book. Oil is an issue that the Bush White House doesn't like to talk about too much and the Palestinian question, as the author points out, has become even more of a problem with the administration's tilt toward Israel.

"Resurrecting Empire" is a highly laudable work and is for the serious reader who wants to get to know more about the heart and the history of this volatile region of the world. Had Bush and his cronies made any attempt to learn more of what the Middle East is like, the United States might not be in the rough situation we face in Iraq today.

43 of 52 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful, sensitive and knowledgeable work May 14, 2004

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

As an American from Turkey, I am impressed with Prof. Khalidi's depth of understanding of Iraq and Middle East, and, of course, our country's not so successful relationship with Middle East. It is easy to hurl insults by some Americans to all that is not American (see the comments by a reviewer from Chicago below) but we have previously experienced our "imperialistic" tendencies in Vietnam when we're not clear about our reasons for being there. We left after terrible sacrifices and, behold, Vietnam turned out to be a friend down the road. No thanks to us, they are doing fine as an independent country. Prof. Khalidi brings a similar sensitivity to our goals, methods and end games in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. His approach is refreshing, honest, clear and doable. Bush administration may not like the objective outside voices but most administrations do not. This isn't the time to be pig-headed but to be level-headed and extremely clear. Prof. K. brings that thoughtfulness. Those who'd like to "nuke" any country who doesn't do what we tell it, will not like this book.