Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Robin Wright (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 19, 2011

A decade after the 9/11 attacks, this groundbreaking book by a preeminent reporter takes readers deep into the struggle within the Muslim world where a growing movement defies and challenges extremism and repudiates Osama bin Laden, his deviant doctrine, and his violent disciples.

Robin Wright, an acclaimed foreign correspondent and television commentator, has witnessed the angry birth, violent rise, and globalization of Islamic militancy for almost four decades. In her recent reporting, she discovers a stunning new trend spreading within the Muslim world—the rejection of Islamic extremists. This is a historic evolution, slow to take off but now reaching critical mass. This trend is increasingly visible as clerics publicly repudiate Osama bin Laden, Muslim comedians ridicule militancy altogether, young Muslims rap against guns and bombs, women scholars launch liberation movements using the Koran, Pakistani villagers resist Taliban intrusions, and former Egyptian jihadis debate and then denounce violence.

This new jihad, which Wright describes in its many manifestations, has various goals. For some Muslims, it’s about reforming the faith. For others, it’s about reforming political systems. For all, it is about achieving basic rights—on their own terms, not Western ones. What is at its heart is the rejection of venomous ideologies, suicide bombs, plane hijackings, hostage-takings, and mass violence.

Muslims, Wright demonstrates, are doing what the West cannot—confronting extremism on its own terms and rescuing the faith from a virulent minority and changing history.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Rock the Casbah

“[Wright] provides invaluable context for what she rightly terms ‘the epic convulsion across the Islamic world’ by listening to voices we don't usually hear....Anyone seeking deeper understanding of the Arab Spring needs to read Wright's formidably well-informed book ….Wright's richly textured portrait of ancient cultures in the throes of wrenching but liberating transformation makes it quite clear that Muslims themselves will decide their future.”

— Los Angeles Times

“…Wright is an expert on the subject and this book is an accessible and riveting account for readers looking to learn more about the post-9/11 Islamic world.”

—Publishers Weekly

“…Wright is one of the most capable observers of the Middle East….her chronicles of counter-jihad, anti-militancy, and women's mobilization are a timely contribution.”

—Huffington Post

Praise for Robin Wright’s

Dreams and Shadows

“Wright has long been one of the best-informed American journalists covering the Middle East, and her reputation is born out here. . . . Her book will be essential reading for anybody who wants to know where it is heading.”

--The New York Times Book Review

“Only Wright could have written Dreams and Shadows because only Wright has traveled so widely, interviewed such diverse leaders, and brought so much wisdom to analyzing the region’s many-sided puzzles. This volume, full of mesmerizing detail and large truths, sets a new standard for scholarship on the modern Middle East.”

--Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State

“If there is such a thing as a pinnacle in the landscape of international journalism, Robin Wright surely stands atop it.”

--The New York Review of Books

“Robin Wright is well aware of the complexities, paradoxes and the seemingly insurmountable dilemmas facing the Middle East today. She reminds us that in facing these challenges we need not resort to military force and violence or resign ourselves to compromise with extremism and tyranny.”

-- Azar Nafisi, author Reading Lolita in Tehran

“The best of all possible worlds: An old hand guides us through the changes in the post-9/11 Middle East, and is able to sort out in a sober, smart way what is really going on.”

--Thomas Ricks, author Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

About the Author

Robin Wright has reported from more than a 140 countries on six continents for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Foreign Policy, the International Herald Tribune, and others and is a frequent television commentator on foreign affairs. Her books include Rock the Casbah, Dreams and Shadows, The Last Great Revolution, Sacred Rage, and Flashpoints.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1 edition (July 19, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 143910316X
• ISBN-13: 978-1439103166
• Product Dimensions: 1.2 x 6.5 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #465,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robin Wright has reported from more than 140 countries on six continents for The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, TIME magazine, The Atlantic, The Sunday Times of London, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, CBS News and many others.
Wright has also been a fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Yale, Duke, Stanford, the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the University of California at Santa Barbara.

She is the recipient of the United Nations Correspondents' Association Gold Medal for coverage of international affairs. The American Academy of Diplomacy selected Wright as the journalist of the year for her "distinguished reporting and analysis of international affairs." She also won the National Press Club award for diplomatic reporting, the National Magazine Award for her reportage from Iran in The New Yorker, and the Overseas Press Club Award for "best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and initia¬tive" for coverage of African wars. She was the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant.

She has been a television commentator on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN and MSNBC programs, including "Meet the Press," "Face the Nation," "This Week," "Nightline," the PBS Newshour, "Frontline," "Charlie Rose," "Larry King Live," "Washington Week in Review," "The Colbert Report," and HBO's "Real Time."

Wright is the author of "Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East" (2008), which The New York Times and The Washington Post both selected as one of the most notable books of the year. She was the editor of "The Iran Primer: Power, Politics and U.S. Policy" (2010), which brought together 50 of the world's top Iran experts. Her other books include "The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran" (2000), which was selected as one of the 25 most memorable books of the year by the New York Library Association, "Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam" (2001), "Flashpoints: Promise and Peril in a New World" (1991), and "In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade" (1989).

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wright's in-depth knowledge of Islamic societies' imparts insight to her Compelling Review and Analysis of Islamic Spring July 26, 2011

By Didaskalex TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

****
"Tunisia and Egypt both saw regime change in less than 30 days. Syria has now been going on five months. And in many ways, Syria is the most surprising and the most difficult place because it is such a brutal regime and it's also geographically right in the middle of, whether it's Israel on one front, the Gulf states on another, ..., that it is so pivotal to what happens in so many other places." -- Robin Wright

The Casbah, is the fortified citadel in many North African cities, similar to the citadel of Algiers in Algeria, governor's headquarters. The name made its way into English from French in the late 19th century. "Rock the Casbah," expresses the mood of the Arab Spring and the revolt against their Muslim dictators. Over the last few decades, tensions have been brewing in Arabic and Muslim countries on the South and East Mediterranean shores, and around the Gulf of Aden. The Arab Spring has targeted several regimes in the Middle East; first, Tunisia's ruler Ben Ali, then Egypt's Mubarak was forced to step down, leaving the country with uncertain future; and Egypt western neighbor, Libya, has since a civil war to oust Qadhafi after forty years of lunatic dictatorship. Assad's cling to power caused Syria hundreds of deaths and thousands of civilian causalities. Meanwhile Yemen's president Ali Abdullah Saleh; is recovering from his wounds and burns caused by a rocket attack, has vowed to fight to the death against the Yemeni tribes lining up against him.

Robin Wright reviews the chaotic situation caused by the political unrest, populous revolts, and civil wars in the Middle East, and across the Islamic World. She portrays those events as part of a general trend, "the counter-jihad, which is unfolding in the wider Islamic bloc of fifty-seven countries as well as among Muslim minorities worldwide." Young Muslims under 30, constitute a majority in the Islamic world, they are at the forefront of this dramatic change. Not just the protestors blockades in Egypt and Tunisia, but on the demonstration platforms in Morocco and Jordan and even on television in Saudi Arabia. She believes that citizens of Muslim majority countries are not only rocking autocratic regimes, but are also counter revolting the violent extremism of terrorist organizations: Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and the fundamentalist Islamic ideology of Muslim Brotherhood, Wahabi Salafis financed by gulf autocratic regimes, and Iran's supported Hamas and Hizbullah fueling terrorism and theocratic rule in Iran.

Wright's in-depth knowledge of Islamic societies cultures and traditions imparts meaning to facts and circumstance provided in every paragraph of "Rock the Casbah." As she compellingly comments, the critical balance between religion and modernity may cause Western observers a great concern. Young generation of Muslim women, she describes as "committed to their faith, firm about their femininity, and resolute about their rights," will cause a pang of uneasy feelings in most observing feminists, distrustful of the Islamic proclamation that "hejab is now about liberation, not confinement" which uncovers an appeasing deal between Muslim girls and society. Meanwhile, she does not reduce the difficulty of the undertaking facing those in search of an authentic form of islamic democracy.

Her final chapters briefly describes political chaos following revolts in Egypt and Tunisia, and the ongoing battles of brutal oppression in Libya, Syria and Yemen. Various demonstration of dissatisfaction, modes of protest in the hope of achieving some success across the Islamic world, are surveyed; without any attempt to predict their near or ultimate outcomes. She warns that, "There is still a wild ride ahead," because new government will be in a position to meet the popular high expectations of either jobs or social justice in the foreseeable future.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Rock the Casbah August 13, 2011

By jem

Format:Hardcover

Remarkable book both in details and perspective that most of the US media are missing. Listening to poets historically revered in the Middle East, hip-hop rappers utilizing new technology, feminists in pink hejab, standup comedians mocking irrational fears of all Muslims, and Muslim clerics with a wide television following, Robin Wright has caught the backlash within the Muslim community against Islamic extremism that only her years of experience as an international journalist can interpret. This is a must read for any American who really wants to understand the current turmoil across the Middle East. Despite Wright's warning that the young revolutionaries expect too much too soon, and her cautions that all change encounters setbacks, her overall perspective is definitely encouraging. She has great faith that it will be the worldwide Muslim community that determines its own fate. It would be helpful if American politicians and diplomats were listening more closely to this reporter who has spent years developing an understanding not only of Middle Eastern leadership but the vast variations among Sunni and Shia populations in countries with very different cultures. For the majority of Americans who do not have a close Muslim friend nor the opportunity to travel in a Muslim country, reading this book is the next best thing.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A post 9/11 must September 3, 2011

By Paulette Lee

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Anyone who has wondered, "Why don't Muslims speak out about Islamic extremism?", or wants to know the behind-the-scenes details about the "Arab Spring" revolutions and where the Arab world is headed, must read this book. It's a fascinating, well-researched, detailed account of what the Muslim youth (primarily) are doing about taking control of their futures -- and their religion -- and how they're doing it.