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Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World Hardcover – July 19, 2011
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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.
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSimon & Schuster
- Publication dateJuly 19, 2011
- Dimensions6.5 x 1.25 x 9.5 inches
- ISBN-10143910316X
- ISBN-13978-1439103166
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“[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
Product details
- Publisher : Simon & Schuster; 1st edition (July 19, 2011)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 143910316X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1439103166
- Item Weight : 1.14 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #3,054,539 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,350 in Islamic Social Studies
- #1,940 in Non-US Legal Systems (Books)
- #2,040 in Comparative Politics
- Customer Reviews:
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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).
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This "counter-jihad" is a pervasive and powerful reaction against the authoritarian regimes that have dominated the Middle East for the last 50 years. It takes a variety of expression from straight-out political protest, to poetry, to music, to plays, to feminism, etc. But it has one common theme, namely, liberation from the stranglehold with which these dictators have exercised complete control over their populations.
Wright believes that this "counter-jihad," the leadership of which is youthful, is so powerful that it is destined to totally and completely "Rock the Casbah," i.e., it will overcome the prevailing dictatorships in most if not all of the 21 Arab and 70 Middle Eastern countries about which she writes.
Wright is , as they say, "cautiously optimistic" about this movement. She thinks that it is destined to prevail, By that she means that the "old order" will not survive, but as to what will replace it she is agnostic. No one, she argues, has a crystal ball as to what the ultimate fate of these countries will be.
She does point out, however, that this movement is definitively not "pro western." It is an authentic intra-middle eastern revolution, based on the totalitarian experences that these several hundred million people have experienced for the last several generations.
Robin Wright is a gem, a widely acclaimed author with a worldwide appeal as a professional journalist. She visited over 20 countries in the region and interviewed key clerics and other notables. Her writing style made for interesting reading. She explains her idea of a "soft revolution" where "Hip-Hop" music, and other protest models, as new challenges, are used by young people to rant against the regimes of oppression and treachery. These ideas have not been revealed before as a tactic of dissent. Accordingly, change is slowly coming to the Middle East by way of the transplanted American genre of "rap".
This is an excellent book, filled with stories from native folks about their culture and how they are coping with the demands of their leaders, living in a "bubble" often without "free will".
Bruce E. McLeod, Jr.
Las Vegas, Nevada
6 September 2015
Top reviews from other countries
One wonders where the authors journalism was published or aired. Certainly not
on US mainstream media. This book sheds light on the burgeoning social revolution
within a multitude of countries ruled by "extractive elitist governance" (see
Why Nations Fail - Daron Acemoglu). That these countries are Islamic simply
reminds us that Muslims are people who want what all want: personal security,
education, unbiased rule of law.




