The Permeability of the Middle East: The Predicament of Regional and Global Forces: a Review Easy

Book reviewed in this article: Persistent Permeability? regionalism, localism, and globalization in the Middle East: by Bassel F. Salloukh and Rex Brynen, eds. A History of the Modern Middle East: by William L. Cleveland Middle East at the Crossroads: the Changing Political Dynamics and the Foreign Policy Challenges: by Manochehr Dorraj, ed. Conflict and Peace in the Middle East: National Perceptions and United States‐Jordan Relations: by Hatem Shareef Abu‐Lebdeh Nation‐Building: A Middle East Recovery Program: by Jerry M. Rosenberg     

Mapping the Middle East from Within: (Counter‐)Cartographies of an Imperialist Construction

Abstract: The “Middle East” is a readily accepted geographical category throughout much of the world. However, within this ambiguous geographic entity, both the term and the idea of the “Middle East” are often rejected as western‐imperialist constructs. Through a critical examination of an extensive sample of maps produced within several Arab states of the “Middle East”, I found that the regional designation “Middle East” is nearly nonexistent, while the Arab Homeland is unequivocally a more common regional category. However, the “Middle East” did occasionally appear in a few maps. This paper provides an explanatory examination of the normative cartographic discourses in this region, and more focused analysis of the atypical maps of the “Middle East”. My analyses render unique insights into how the “Middle East” is both contested and re‐created from within a western‐imperialist defined region.     

Review

Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East, Valentine M. Moghadam Women in the Middle East: Perceptions, Realities, and Struggles for Liberation, Haleh Afshar, editor     

Middle East History: a Review Essay

The Modern Middle East: a history; James L. Gelvin The Modern Middle East: a political history since the First World War; Mehren Kamrava     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East. By Evelyne Accad
Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria. By David Dean Commins
Khomeini's Forgotten Sons: The Story of Iran's Boy Soldters. By Ian Brown
Bibliographical Guide to Iran: The Middle East Library Committee Guide. Edited by L. P. Elwell-Sutton     

20世纪50年代美国的中东政策——从欧米加计划到艾森豪威尔主义的诞生

艾森豪威尔主义是20世纪50年代美国艾森豪威尔政府出台的中东政策,旨在引导部分阿拉伯国家参与其全球遏制战略,共同抵御苏联对中东地区的渗透,它构成了其后几十年美国中东政策的基础.而艾森豪威尔主义是在欧米加计划不能有效处理中东问题的基础上诞生的,是对欧米加计划的公开阐明,这突出体现了美国中东政策的连续性.     

海湾战争与土耳其中东外交政策评析

20世纪40年代以来土耳其奉行亲西方,尤其是亲美的一边倒外交政策,土耳其中东外交服务于其西方战略,长期以中立和不介入为主要特征。20世纪90年代世界政治格局的变化使得土耳其必须重新调整其中东外交政策,海湾战争为土耳其重新实践其外交政策提供了机遇,土耳其在中东开始采取积极、主动的新型外交政策。海湾战争成为土耳其中东外交的分水岭。海湾战争中,土耳其积极介入中东事务的政策与土耳其亲西方的外交政策恰好吻合;伊拉克战争则表明土耳其中东外交与其亲西方外交之间的不协调性。     

海湾风云的地缘政治分析

本文全面回顾分析了海湾风云中,伊科冲突和美国出兵海湾的地缘政治背景,以及苏联和阿拉伯世界基于地缘政治的考虑和选择。     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Review in this Articles Creative Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn 'Arabi By Henry Corbin Translated from the French by Ralph Manheim. The Theology of Unity. By Muhammad ^cAbduh, translated from the Arabic by Ishãq Musa^Cad and Kenneth Cragg. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd, 1966. 164 pp. Arabic Literature. By I. M. Filshtinsky La littérature arabe. By André Miquel. Qaid-E-Azam Jinnah as I Knew Him. By M. A. H. Ispahani Karachi The Youth of Haouch el Harimi, a Lebanese Village. By Judith R Williams The United States and the Arab World By William R Pok The British in the Middle East. By Sarah Searight A Middle East Reader. Edited by Irene L. Gendzier. Middle East: Past and Present. By Yahya Armajani. The Formation of the Soviet Central Asian Republics. By R. Vaidyanath. Iranian-American Diplomacy. By Mehdi Heravi. A Bibliography of A.U.B. Faculty Publications 1866–1966. Compiled and edited by Suha Tamim. L'arabe classique: Esquisse d'une structure linguistique. By Henri Fleisch S. J. Beyrouth Political Systems of the Middle East in the 30th Century. By W. F. Ab-boushi. Etudes Arabes: Feuilles de Travail. Rome: Institut Pontifical d'Etudes Arak.     

Imperial Dreams Prefigured: America and its Middle Eastern Urge

Book reviewed:
McAlister, Melani. Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East.     

Pottery technology in the Tang dynasty (ninth century ad): archaeometric analyses of a Gongyi sherd found at Siraf,Iran

In 1969–70, a single Tang dynasty blue‐spotted Gongyi sherd was found at Siraf, Iran, the main trading port on the Persian Gulf in the early Islamic period. This is the only known example of Chinese blue‐and‐white ware, whether low‐ or high‐fired, found in the Middle East from such an early date. The sherd provides direct archaeological evidence for the Indian Ocean trade between China and the Middle East in the ninth century ad . The body paste, clear glaze and blue glaze or pigment were analysed by thin‐section petrography, scanning electron microscopy with energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectrometry (SEM‐EDX) and X‐ray fluorescence (XRF). The technological analysis reveals the different steps of the chaîne opératoire: clay mixing, slip and glaze application, and decoration with the cobalt blue glaze before high‐temperature firing. These steps are characteristic of Tang stoneware production at Gongyi in Henan province, China. The use of cobalt blue pigment as part of a simple spotted decoration scheme on the Gongyi sherd, and its find context within the Middle East, provides evidence for the complex interplay and influence occurring between Chinese and Middle East ceramic industries at this time. Closely comparable examples of contemporary low‐fired earthenware ceramics with cobalt blue decoration on a white tin glaze manufactured within the Middle East also occur within the same assemblage from Siraf.     

2000—2018年全球恐怖袭击事件危害评价及时空演变研究

本文运用模糊综合评价、K-Means聚类等方法,探讨了全球恐怖袭击事件的危害程度及时空演变特征。研究发现：①发生频次最高的年份为2010年和2011年,地区为南亚、中东和北非,袭击类型为轰炸/爆炸,国家包括印度、伊拉克、巴基斯坦等;②危害程度越高的恐怖袭击事件其集中化程度越高;一级、二级事件主要分布在中东和北非、南亚等地区,三级、四级和五级事件主要分布在南亚、中东和北非及东南亚等地区;③空间上大致分为中东、中亚和南亚三大活跃区,菲律宾群岛等九大次级活跃区,爪哇岛和苏门答腊岛等其他风险区。本文对理解恐怖主义特征以及全球共同抵制恐怖主义具有重要参考价值。     

九十年代中东地缘政治的因素与机制探讨

中东是个独特的政治地理区域,90年代以来正在走向多极化。影响中东地缘政治的因素丰富多样,本文对其中的地理位置、国土、自然资源、民族、宗教、地区霸权等最重要的因素进行了简要的论述。并在提出国家影响力、地缘政治影响力概念的基础上,设计了简明的公式,对中东地缘政治稳定度作了定量探讨,文间还结合当前中东政局中的重大问题和主要特征进行了分析。     

Transport Infrastructure and Regional Integration in the Middle East

The soft aspects of the infrastructure of regionalism in the Middle East have previously been studied, while the impact of the region’s hard infrastructure, in particular transport infrastructure, has received little attention. This paper contributes to the study of regionalism in the Middle East by investigating the relationship between hard infrastructure and economic integration. It analyzes whether the state of domestic and cross‐border transport infrastructure in the region promotes regional trade. This is done by addressing the following sub‐questions: 1) What is the condition of domestic and cross‐border transport infrastructure in the Middle East? And 2) What is the relationship between domestic and cross‐border transport infrastructure and regional trade in the Middle East? These questions are answered by examining Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey as representative samples of the broader region. It is argued that regionalism relies on the development of domestic and cross‐border transport infrastructure and where the latter is limited, regionalism cannot deepen. The study concludes that domestic and cross‐border transport infrastructure performance is weak in several of the countries studied and that this weakness hinders regional economic integration regardless of the level of the region’s soft infrastructure.     

The Consumptive Ruins Archaeology of Consuming Past in the Middle East

After the collapse of Ottoman Empire and division of old Iran, the new geography of Middle East needed new identities. The ancient mythical past could not respond the new idea of identity anymore; because of that, the archaeological past replaced the mythical ones. All over the Middle East, the heaven of archaeologists, was excavated; ancient ruins were recovered and redefined. In such a context, the archaeological evidences remained in the hands of Middle Easterner governments. During mid-1960–1970s, Pan Arabism and Pan Aryanism both raised in the region. In both Iran and Syria, the governments celebrated ancient empires. Such festivals have been known responsible for further fundamental thoughts relevant to archaeological past. The world witnessed the demolish of Palmyra ancient ruins by ISIS. Such an action is the other site of propagandist abuse of ancient ruins by governments. Both consume the past, and both try to redefine it: one in form of demolishing and the other in form of propaganda. In this article, the authors endorsed on various forms of consuming the past in the Middle East by opposition groups and by governments.     

Clay Tobacco Pipes and Coffee Cup Sherds in the Archaeology of the Middle East: Artifacts of Social Tensions from the Ottoman Past

Nearly all discussion in historical archaeology exploring issues of consumption and commodities is focused on the Euro-American world. This paper contributes data from archaeological investigations in the Middle East for exploring modern consumption. Commodities of pleasure, such as tobacco and coffee, entered Middle Eastern social life after the fifteenth century and greatly impacted the cultural landscape of the Middle East, entangling the peoples of the region into larger socio-political arenas. Examples from provincial corners of the Ottoman Empire illustrate the potential of historical archaeology for uncovering the material self-definition of peoples in the Middle East and for breaking down perceived divisions between components of the modern world.     

The ultimate test case: can Europe and America forge a joint strategy for the wider Middle East?

The call for a common US–European approach to the multiple problems of the wider Middle East region has become the latest truism of the transatlantic circuit. But the Middle East is also the region that has historically most divided Americans and Europeans. Steven Everts argues that, despite the different reflexes and assumptions, a joint transatlantic effort is both necessary and feasible. But it will only work if both sides are prepared to adjust policies, allocate sufficient resources and, most of all, take political risks. He sketches a joint strategy based on four pillars: a new international bargain for Iraq; keeping the two-state solution alive in Israel–Palestine; preventing the next transatlantic bust-up over Iran; and with regard to the crisis of governance, taking concrete steps to promote political reforms throughout the region. The author concludes that in the Middle East, Europe must be more strategically daring while America must be more politically astute.     

美国基督教锡安主义的发展及影响

美国基督教锡安主义是影响美、以关系和中东局势的一个重要因素。美国基督教主流一自由派主要出于世俗的、人道主义的考虑而支持或反对锡安主义,美国基督教福音一基要派则主要出于“神定时代论”的末世信仰而支持锡安主义和以色列。美国基督教锡安主义是美国长期偏袒以色列的社会文化基础。其宗教极端主义的成分加剧了中东的文明冲突,阻碍了中东的和平进程。     

Gender and feminist geographies in the Middle East

This article aimed to review the research carried out in the Middle East primarily on gender and feminist geography and also on place formation, urban space, movement and mobility in the social and political sciences. This aim turned out to be challenging primarily because of the colonial and post-colonial history of the region that continues to have a profound effect on the development of academic knowledge among Middle Eastern scholars as well as a restricted accessibility to material published inside the Middle East. Despite this, the article primarily focuses on feminist research on Middle Eastern women done by Middle Eastern scholars and published in Middle Eastern journals and books primarily in Arabic (and Hebrew in Israel). However, during the process of reviewing a large variety of articles, book chapters and books that exist on Middle Eastern women, we realized that it is sometimes difficult and rather artificial to review the material with only this division in mind. In the end, we reviewed the literature on gender and feminism in the Middle East mainly highlighting local published research and also briefly referring to research published in the West by both Westerners and local researchers. The article begins with presenting its research methodology. It then analyzes the website and literature review that we carried out on the contexts, frameworks and themes of gender and feminist geography and spatial research in the Middle East with particular attention on the research carried out in Israel/Palestine. We focus on the private–public spheres; migration and diaspora and the veil as key concepts in analyzing the literature in this section. In the last section, we explain the reasons for the limitations on gender and feminist research in geography inside the Middle East and mention some general conclusions.     

The Middle East Synchrotron Facility can bring Regional Cooperation

Over three years ago, Germany decided to gift the BESSY‐I, a 800MeV synchrotron, fully functioning since 1982 in Berlin, to the region of Middle East. The Middle East Synchrotron better known by the acronym SESAME (Synchrotron‐light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) will be the upgraded reincarnation of BESSY‐I. SESAME, the first synchrotron in the Middle East, is envisioned as a seed for a regional international research center, open to scientists in the region and beyond. The founders of the SESAME Project see a facility similar in purpose to the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva, which brought together numerous scientists from countries that had fought each other during the two World Wars. Scientific collaboration beyond the national boundaries has been a force for peace in the cold war. An account of events leading to these very significant developments is presented.