The Arab Predicament

How have Arab political ideas and institutions evolved since the 1967 War? How have the Arabs contended with the external influences to which their wealth has exposed them? What are the implications of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism? Fouad Ajami seeks to answer these and related questions in his illuminating study of the constraints and possibilities facing the Arab world. The book documents the political and intellectual response to the defeat of 1967 and surveys the choices facing the Arab world as exemplified by the case of Egypt. It seeks to explain the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism and locates its roots in the failures of the dominant political order, and the stalemate of secular political ideas. This revised edition, first published in 1992, was updated and renewed the book's status as an indispensable guide to the politics of the Arab world.

Part I. One's World As It Really Is: 1. The radical sensibility; 2. The Ba'th party: a retrospective; 3. The Islamic response: radical fundamentalism; 4. Conservative fundamentalism; Part II. Egypt As A State: 5. The legacy reassessed; 6. The Egyptian search; 7. The ways of the Pharoah, the ways of others; 8. The push of the desert, the Paull of the Mediterranean; 9. Egypt as a mirror, as a state; Part III. Fractured Tradition: The Claims of Authenticity, The Realities of Dependence: 10. The 'revolution' contained; 11. The dominant order's brief triumph; 12. The question of authenticity and collaboration; 13. The ruler's, Islam of the ruled; 14. The ways of the ancestors, the ways of the world.