The Penguin History of the Modern Arab World

The Arab world has been punctuated by radical possibility, from the Ottoman Empire’s last years to the 2011 uprisings and beyond. From Morocco in the west to Iraq and the Gulf in the east, its people have striven to define and redefine freedom: freedom from colonial rule, freedom from poverty and inequality, and freedom of speech, thought, and belief.

The Penguin History of the Modern Arab World provides a much-needed corrective to western portrayals of a place defined by fanaticism, ignorance and the cruelties of war and autocracy, as prize-winning historian Andrew Arsan tells a new history of the Arab twentieth century. Here is a story of political creativity and resourcefulness, hopes and dreams, bold ambitions and painful disappointments – as seen from the vantage point of the region’s inhabitants.

Exploring the thoughts and actions of politicians and technocrats, intellectuals, trade unionists, feminists, schoolteachers, students, poets, workers and peasants, Arsan reveals the chorus of competing ideas which animated the anti-colonial nationalism of the early twentieth century, the Third World solidarities of decolonization, the new Islamism that emerged in the 1970s, and the neoliberal reforms of the 1990s and 2000s.

A gripping and panoramic history, The Penguin History of the Modern Arab World is essential reading for understanding the region and the world today.