A review of The Arabs: A History by Eugene Rogan (and more and more and more and more). The Arab states of the Gulf region have agreed to launch a single currency modelled on the euro, hoping to blaze a trail towards a pan-Arab monetary union. Pan-Arabism in context: The impulse to unity may have been sidetracked but that does not mean it was wrong, argues Galal Nassar. After 40 years in which Arab states grew steadily stronger, has the past decade seen the rise of competitors to their authority? An interview with Jo Tatchell on books about desert nations. Isabella Bird and Louisa Jebb both travelled to the Middle East at the turn of the twentieth century; Hannah Adcock compares their journals. An interview with Ziauddin Sardar on books about travel in the Middle East (and more). Veils, gold, calligraphy: Here's a mixed crop of new books surveying Middle Eastern art practices. An argumentative Arab Enlightener: A portrait of Syrian philosopher Sadiq Al-Azm. A review of Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia by Robert Lacey. Can a new research university save the Saudi economy and transform a closed society? (and more). A look at how Yemen is a failed state in the making. The Cairo Conundrum: Egypt is the linchpin to America's Middle East policy, a policy that must make interests reinforce ideals, rather than conflict with them. The latest source of instability in the Middle East isn't the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Iran's nukes — it's a bitter soccer rivalry between Egypt and Algeria. A review of What's Really Wrong with the Middle East by Brian Whitaker.
