Dawisha, Adeed. Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: from Triumph to Despair

Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ), Wntr, 2004

Dawisha, Adeed. Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair. Princeton, N J: Princeton University Press, 2003. Hardcover $29.95.

Adeed Dawisha analyzes Arab nationalism from its "early stirrings" and inception until its demise. He distinguishes between Arabism and Arab nationalism and takes issue with authors who do not. He also provides a description and discussion of Sati' al-Husri's theory of Arab nationalism and demonstrates how al-Husri's nationalism was influenced by German cultural nationalism theory as opposed to the more political theory of nationalism that was conceived by English and French philosophers. As Arab nationalism developed, it had to contend with what Dawisha terms "competing loyalties" of tribe, religion, region, etc. from the 1920s until the "Arab revolt in Palestine." The rise of Arab nationalism occurred between the Palestinian revolt and the Egyptian revolution. Nasser was the main figure of Arab nationalism and Dawisha provides a wonderful analysis of the Nasser period and shows how events overtook Nasser's better judgement regarding the union with Syria in 1958 that he was reluctant to join.

The book is must reading for anyone interested in Arab studies, Middle Eastern studies or nationalism. However, Dawisha does not show the relationship of Arab nationalism to international capitalist development. His work is essentially devoid from a political economy perspective that could have enhanced the reader's understanding of and provided more of a comprehensive context for the rise and fall of Arab nationalism. This rise and fall was concomitant with the rise and fall of nationalist political development in various parts of the "Third World." It would have been important to look at those developments to which Arab nationalism had been subjected to on the domestic and international levels. After all, Sadat's Infitah and all of its political and economic consequences came on the heels of the Nasser period.