Making the Arab World

Reviews / Votes

"A highly knowledgeable history that is helpful in explaining recent developments in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East." * Kirkus * "Gerges . . . writes with brilliant insight about these two competing forces in the Arab world: pan-nationalism and pan-Islamist movements."---Steve Donoghue, The National "This is an important work of journalism as well as history."---Richard Spencer, The Times "In Making the Arab World, Fawaz Gerges traces the intertwining biographies and intellectual trajectories of these two titans of Egyptian history. The result is a fascinating and deeply researched revisionist history-one that sheds light on the forces still roiling in Egypt under the surface calm of Sisi's rule. Today, Nasser and Qutb are remembered as representatives of opposing visions for Egypt. Gerges, however, tells a far more interesting and complicated story about the relationship between the two men and the movements they helped shape. Behind their competing ideologies were flawed individuals with complex and sometimes contradictory motivations. Gerges' reexamination of a crucial period in Egyptian history usefully illustrates how all ideologies-even the ones that seem most fixed and unyielding-are in fact fluid and contingent on events."---Shadi Hamid, Foreign Affairs "At 400-plus pages, the new book from Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, is a weighty tome drawing on more than 12 years of research but it is also accessible and refreshing."---Gareth Smyth, Arab Weekly "Making the Arab World: Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash that Shaped the Middle East is a significant contribution to Middle East studies. It draws together incredible research to tell an important story about two figures who had a great impact on life in their own historical moment and beyond."---Caleb Elfenbein, American Academy of Religion "This dual biography of two Egyptians, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Sayyid Qutb, shows clearly that the conflagration in Middle Eastern lands was kindled a long time ago. In the face of a complex civilizational dynamic, Gerges gives the reader the fundamental answer: What we have intervened in is an intra-Islamic war between the secular nationalists and the Islamists; or, in the words of one of Gerges's Islamist interviewees, a war between 'Islam versus apostasy.'"---Lima Simms, Law and Liberty "Fawaz Gerges gives a novel, nuanced, and extremely interesting view of the relationship between the hero of Arab nationalism, Gamal Nasser, and the main intellectual of the Muslim Brotherhood Sayyid Qutb. I enjoyed reading it both from a pleasure point of view as well as from an informative one. It is highly readable and informative."---Karim Mezran, Atlantic Council "To understand the current environment within Egypt and its neighboring countries, Gerges provides both an analytical as well as empirical framework to assist in understanding the difficulties between nationalism and activist Islam."---Lt. Col. Stephen Harvey, U.S. Army, Retired, Military Review "What we have is a solid, clearly written work of scholarship by a talented and experienced historian of the Middle East. Over a decade in the writing, it is an important contribution to the growing number of books that aim to explicate Islamism's dialectical relationship with the Arab state."---John Calvert, Middle East Journal "Not since Richard P. Mitchell's The Society of the Muslim Brothers and Nazih Ayubi's equally definitive Political Islam has the scholarly community been treated to such a comprehensive and thought-provoking work."---Ghada Hashem Talhami, Middle East Policy Council "Interviewing close to a hundred elderly comrades for a new history of the relationship between the Egyptian state and the Islamists, Fawaz Gerges, a longtime professor at the London School of Economics, breathes new life into one of the most formative periods in the history of post-colonial Egypt. It is a good story, worthy not only of a fine historian but providing rich material for a novelist or a playwright who might take interest in digging through the ruins of decolonization and the rubble of dystopia."---Yoav Di-Capua, Los Angeles Review of Books "In his sweeping and powerful new book Making the Arab World, Fawaz Gerges traces the genesis of this ill will to the show-down, in Egypt, between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Free Officers in 1952-54."---John Calvert, Bustan