Mohammed bin Salman. A monarch-to-be without scruples? Or a visionary seeking a path to global power? A social reformer determined to bring his country into the twenty-first century? Or just another brutal dictator? A leader on the road to greatness, or one destined to follow in the footsteps of Icarus? Veteran Washington Post foreign correspondent David Ottaway draws on more than a half-century    More >

The previous edition of Understanding the Contemporary Middle East was published soon after the Arab uprisings, and the authors—writing across disciplines—captured those moments of possibility. Now, more than six years later, the Middle East is substantially changed, with three protracted civil wars, several retrenched authoritarian regimes, possibly one emerging democracy, and social    More >

Despite substantial spending on education and robust support for reform both internally and by external donors, the quality of education in many, if not most, Arab countries remains low. Which raises the question: why? The authors of The Political Economy of Education in the Arab World find answers in the authoritarian political economies that shape the architecture of national governance    More >

The rise and decline of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Deepening authoritarianism in Turkey. The return to military-led rule in Egypt. The impact of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in Saudi Arabia. Heightened sectarian tensions throughout the region. These are among the many current topics covered in the third edition of the acclaimed Politics and Society in the Contemporary Middle East. With the    More >

How did the lands that are today Syria survive the vicissitudes of centuries of Ottoman, Egyptian, and French rule, only to stand in ruins today, shattered by a brutal civil war? To provide answers, James Reilly traces five centuries of Syrian history, from the Ottoman period to the present. Reilly brings to life the myriad historical, cultural, social, economic, and political factors that have    More >

The collapse of the multiethnic, multireligious, and multilingual Ottoman Empire after World War I led to the establishment of several nation-states, with enormous repercussions for the empire's minority populations. Baskın Oran focuses on religious and ethnic minorities in the Republic of Turkey—home for centuries to Alevites, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Kurds, Syriacs, and more—to    More >

T. E. Lawrence once observed that Saudi Arabia had "so little art" that it could "be said to have no art at all." Whether that was once the case is arguable. But that it is not the case now is clear in Sean Foley's Changing Saudi Arabia. Exploring the contemporary arts movement in Saudi Arabia in the context of the kingdom's changing political realities, Foley finds    More >