Foundations of Modern Arab Identity Review

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Foundations of Modern Arab Identity ReviewDo not take the review of a "Felix" who claims to be Chiite (correct spelling would be Shiaa and anyone who knows anything about Arab culture, let alone Lebanon, would see right through this right-wing masquerade, as a Shiaa family would NEVER name their child Felix), as a benchmark of aunthenticity in judging this extraordinary piece of work by author Stephen Sheehi.
As a real Lebanese, and one who truly appreciates literature and academia at it's finest, I found a rarity in the depth, clarity and oustanding theoretical framework of this book. Sheehi does a spectacular job of bringing to light the true foundation of Modern Arab identity by expertly calling on Marxism, Psychoanlysis and several indispensable theories of the Century to aid him. His exquisite understanding of the theories, woven effortlessly into the book's main argument, often left me dumbfounded-but most especially, more learned, and more at ease with what had once been a difficult concept to wrap my mind around.
Sheehi delivers what he promises. I was taken back to the Foudations of my forefathers, allowed a glimpse at the confluence of social, poilitical and psychological factors that have formed Modern Arab Identity.
For a truly spellbinding experience, I advise you to read this book.
And to you Felix, ask some of your right-wing buddies to perhaps fill you in on some Middle East history before trying to masquerade as an avid scholar of Lebanon.Foundations of Modern Arab Identity OverviewDynamic and original, this study of the formation of modern Arab identity discusses the work of "pioneers of the Arab Renaissance," both renowned and forgotten--a pantheon of intellectuals, reformers, and journalists whose writing until now has been mostly untranslated.Against the backdrop of European imperialism in the Arab world, these literati planted the roots of modernity though their experiments in language, rhetoric, and literature. In both fiction and nonfiction they generated a radically new sense of Arab identity. At the same time, Sheehi argues, they created the terrain that produced an Arab preoccupation with "failure" and a perception of Western "superiority"--the terms intellectuals themselves used in the 19th century in diagnosing their cultural crisis.Neglected by historians, this ambivalent and contradictory state of consciousness is at the heart of the ideology of Arab identity, Sheehi says, and it describes a variety of subjective positions that Arabs would adopt throughout the 20th century. It became the intellectual quicksand for the Arab world's confrontation with colonialism, capitalist expansion, and individual state formation.Using psychoanalytic and post-structuralist theory, Sheehi looks at texts by writers such as Butrus al-Bustani, Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, Muhammad al-Muwaylihi, and Muhammad Abduh. His analysis deconstructs popular and academic perceptions--especially prevalent after 9/11--that Arabs have failed to internalize modernity. Indeed, he says, Christian secularists, Islamic modernists, and romantic nationalists alike have produced a body of knowledge and shared an epistemology that constitute modernity in the Arab world.Starting in Middle Eastern literature and intellectual history and ending in postcolonial studies, this groundbreaking work offers a sophisticated counter-theoretical framework for understanding and reevaluating modern Arabic literature and also the history and historiography of Arab nationalism.

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