The New Middle East by James L. Gelvin Answers Pressing Questions

by Rana Asfour

​Am loving how this entire book uses a concise question and answer format to inform of the afflictions that have long tormented the Modern Middle East thus revealing the fundamental struggles that the region has endured since 2010.

In "The New Middle East: what everyone needs to know", James L. Gelvin presents ‘an overview of the contemporary Middle East, touching on topics including ‘the perverse results’ of the Arab Spring, the Syrian civil war, the rise of jihadi groups, the involvement of external actors & more.’
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Published by Oxford University Press in 2018, this short book (only 167 pages) is part of a class offered virtually by DC's Politics & Prose Bookstore titled ‘A Ten-Year Retrospective of the Arab Uprisings: 2010-2020) with Heba F. El-Shazli.

I liked it because of its brevity, the question and answer format it applies throughout the book and that it stayed away from past history concentrating instead on the ten years following the thwarted 2010 Arab Spring and how the events of those days have translated into today's reality for those living in the Middle East and out of it and the role the United States (particularly the Obama administration) played in how the region got to what it is today and where it is headed in the future.


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