Posts Tagged ‘American’

Newsweek March 15 2010 Saving American Education, Murder in Dubai, HBO/Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg The Pacific, Art: The Holocaust as Inspiration

Newsweek March 15 2010 Saving American Education, Murder in Dubai, HBO/Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg The Pacific, Art: The Holocaust as Inspiration

American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism

Product Description

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, many of America’s Christian evangelicals have denounced Islam as a “demonic” and inherently violent religion, provoking frustration among other Christian conservatives who wish to present a more appealing message to the world’s Muslims. Yet as Thomas Kidd reveals in this sobering book, the conflicted views expressed by today’s evangelicals have deep roots in American history.

Tracing Islam’s role in the popular imagination of American Christians from the colonial period to today, Kidd demonstrates that Protestant evangelicals have viewed Islam as a global threat–while also actively seeking to convert Muslims to the Christian faith–since the nation’s founding. He shows how accounts of “Mahometan” despotism and lurid stories of European enslavement by Barbary pirates fueled early evangelicals’ fears concerning Islam, and describes the growing conservatism of American missions to Muslim lands up through the post-World War II era. Kidd exposes American Christians’ anxieties about an internal Islamic threat from groups like the Nation of Islam in the 1960s and America’s immigrant Muslim population today, and he demonstrates why Islam has become central to evangelical “end-times” narratives. Pointing to many evangelicals’ unwillingness to acknowledge Islam’s theological commonalities with Christianity and their continued portrayal of Islam as an “evil” and false religion, Kidd explains why Christians themselves are ironically to blame for the failure of evangelism in the Muslim world.

American Christians and Islam is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the causes of the mounting tensions between Christians and Muslims today.

American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism

Dinarzad’s Children: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Fiction

• ISBN13: 9781557289124
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
The first edition of Dinarzad’s Children was a groundbreaking and popular anthology that brought to light the growing body of short fiction being

written by Arab Americans. This expanded edition includes sixteen new stories —thirty in all—and new voices and is now organized into sections that invite readers to enter the stories from a variety of directions. Here are stories that reveal the initial adjustments of immigrants, the challenges of forming relationships, the political nuances of being Arab American, the vision directed towards homeland, and the ongoing search for balance and identity.

The contributors are D. H. Melhem, Mohja Khaf, Rabih Alameddine, Rawi Hage, Laila Halaby, Patricia Sarrafian Ward, Alia Yunis, Diana Abu Jaber, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Samia Serageldin, Alia Yunis,

Joseph Geha, May Monsoor Munn, Frances Khirallah Nobel, Nabeel Abraham, Yussef El Guindi, Hedy Habra, Randa Jarrar, Zahie El Kouri, Amal Masri, Sahar Mustafah, Evelyn Shakir, David Williams, Pauline Kaldas, and Khaled Mattawa.

Dinarzad’s Children: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Fiction

Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts

• ISBN13: 9780976910084
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
In the aftermath of the tragedy of 9/11, journalist, teacher, and peace advocate Samar Jarrah found herself called upon by her small Florida community, as well as impelled from within, to dispel stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims. After three years of speaking to audiences of up to 800 Americans—in churches, at events of professional associations and other organizations, and at peace rallies, Ms. Jarrah had a vision. If governments would do nothing to combat misunderstanding between Americans and Arabs, then she would open a direct dialogue between these peoples.

Thus, Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts was conceived. But how? A second inspiration prompted Ms. Jarrah to email a great variety of friends, family, and professional contacts in the U.S. and assemble over 100 questions that Americans wanted to ask Arabs and Muslims. A naturalized American citizen herself since 1994, Jarrah then spent the month of October 2004 in Egypt, Jordan, and Kuwait asking these questions.

The remarkable result is found in these pages. Important themes recur throughout the 12 interviews. First, most of those interviewed liked Americans—some even had relatives married to Americans. Many of those interviewed had studied in America and admired Americans as a friendly and enterprising people. Most of these also admired the American form of government.

Yet nearly all of the interviewees disliked current American polices toward the Middle East, especially those of the Bush administration, as well as long-standing American foreign policy toward the problem of Palestine. These two issues, along with the Iraqi war, mostly angered the Arab men and women interviewed. Yet, viewpoints varied. Some thought that American efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East were good, while others said that democracy in Arab countries could only come from within. Some thought that American troops should remain in Iraq and some did not. One theme flows throughout the book—all those interviewed were delighted to be asked to describe their lives and views to Americans—and to ask similar questions of Americans.

Thus, Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts provides a cross-section of Arab society in thought—as well as in gender, age, and even religion. Of the 4 women and 8 men who speak in the book, ages range from 19 to 66, and 9 are Muslim and 3 Christian. The interviews were conducted randomly. All but one are “average” people—ordinary citizens of their countries, although most are well-educated. One is a well-known woman film director Jarrah’s follow-up to Arab Voices Speak will be a book based on the questions that her Arabic interviewees and others in the Arab world wanted to ask the American people directly. Ms. Jarrah also has several other books planned.

Arab Voices Speak to American Hearts

The Dar ul Islam Movement: An American Odyssey Revisited

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In the pages of this book, Dar ul Islam, an American Odyssey, discover the journey a young 16 year old African American high school student whose interests are music, race and religious philosophy as he becomes totally absorbed in his new found faith Islam. Follow his adventure into the largest American Muslim fundamentalist organization known as the Dar ul Islam Movement (1962-1983). See how the Dar, as it was known by its membership, began and organized itself with the object of establishing the religion of Islam in America. The ‘establishment’ of Islam was understood by its membership, as a semi-autonomous way of living in America with the Qur’an and the Sunnah (Shariah) as legitimate tools for governing the Muslim American Community. The Dar ul Islam Movement, at it’s height was directly responsible for the Islamic direction taken for twenty-one years in over 44 American cities under the leadership of one Imam, Sh. Yahya Abdul Kareem and his Amirate or administrators. In Dar ul Islam, an American Odyssey, Sh. Mahmoud Ibrahim gives some valuable insights into the inner workings of the headquarters of the ‘movement’, Yasin Mosque, and the Imam’s commitment to the Sunnah or practices of Muhammad (pboh) in an urban environment.

The Dar ul Islam Movement: An American Odyssey Revisited

Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East

• ISBN13: 9781601270306
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
As Washington struggles to revive the Arab-Israeli peace process, Kurtzer and Lasensky offer the definitive guidebook on how to broker peace in the Middle East. Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace sets forth a compelling, interests-based framework for American engagement in the peace process; provides a critical assessment of U.S. diplomacy since the end of the Cold War; and offers a set of ten core lessons to guide the efforts of future American negotiators.

This concise volume is the product of the United States Institute of Peace s Study Group on Arab-Israeli Peacemaking, which brings together some of America s most respected and experienced authorities in the field: William B. Quandt (University of Virginia), Steven L. Spiegel (University of California-Los Angeles), and Shibley Z. Telhami (University of Maryland and the Brookings Institution). The book draws on nine months of groundbreaking consultations with dozens of statesmen, political leaders, and civil society figures who have defined Middle East peacemaking in recent years.

Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East

Post Gibran: Anthology of New Arab American Writing

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This is a compilation of poetry, fiction, essays and drama confronting issues in Arab American writing.

Post Gibran: Anthology of New Arab American Writing

Thirty-Three Secrets Arab Men Never Tell American Women

Thirty-Three Secrets Arab Men Never Tell American Women

Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11

• ISBN13: 9780871540485
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
In the aftermath of 9/11, many Arab and Muslim Americans came under intense scrutiny by federal and local authorities, as well as their own neighbors, on the chance that they might know, support, or actually be terrorists. As Louise Cainkar observes, even U.S.-born Arabs and Muslims were portrayed as outsiders, an image that was amplified in the months after the attacks. She argues that 9/11 did not create anti-Arab and anti-Muslim suspicion; rather, their socially constructed images and social and political exclusion long before these attacks created an environment in which misunderstanding and hostility could thrive and the government could defend its use of profiling. Combining analysis and ethnography, Homeland Insecurity provides an intimate view of what it means to be an Arab or a Muslim in a country set on edge by the worst terrorist attack in its history.

Focusing on the metropolitan Chicago area, Cainkar conducted more than a hundred research interviews and five in-depth oral histories. In this, the most comprehensive ethnographic study of the post-9/11 period for American Arabs and Muslims, native-born and immigrant Palestinians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Yemenis, Sudanese, Jordanians, and others speak candidly about their lives as well as their experiences with government, public mistrust, discrimination, and harassment after 9/11. The book reveals that Arab Muslims were more likely to be attacked in certain spatial contexts than others and that Muslim women wearing the hijab were more vulnerable to assault than men, as their head scarves were interpreted by some as a rejection of American culture. Even as the 9/11 Commission never found any evidence that members of Arab- or Muslim-American communities were involved in the attacks, respondents discuss their feelings of insecurity–a heightened sense of physical vulnerability and exclusion from the guarantees of citizenship afforded other Americans.

Yet the vast majority of those interviewed for Homeland Insecurity report feeling optimistic about the future of Arab and Muslim life in the United States. Most of the respondents talked about their increased interest in the teachings of Islam, whether to counter anti-Muslim slurs or to better educate themselves. Governmental and popular hostility proved to be a springboard for heightened social and civic engagement. Immigrant organizations, religious leaders, civil rights advocates, community organizers, and others defended Arabs and Muslims and built networks with their organizations. Local roundtables between Arab and Muslim leaders, law enforcement, and homeland security agencies developed better understanding of Arab and Muslim communities. These post-9/11 changes have given way to stronger ties and greater inclusion in American social and political life.

Will the United States extend its values of freedom and inclusion beyond the politics of “us” and “them” stirred up after 9/11? The answer is still not clear. Homeland Insecurity is keenly observed and adds Arab and Muslim American voices to this still-unfolding period in American history.

Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11

American Express Business Travel Launches Online Travel Management Scorecard

American Express Business Travel Launches Online Travel Management Scorecard
NEW YORK—-With the worldwide recession having fundamentally altered the business travel landscape, companies are adapting to a new operating environment. There is an opportunity to measure how prepared they are with adjustments made during the recession and in the face of travel demand coming back.

Read more on Business Wire via Yahoo! Finance

Between Arab and White: Race and Ethnicity in the Early Syrian American Diaspora

• ISBN13: 9780520255340
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
This multifaceted study of Syrian immigration to the United States places Syrians– and Arabs more generally–at the center of discussions about race and racial formation from which they have long been marginalized. Between Arab and White focuses on the first wave of Arab immigration and settlement in the United States in the years before World War II, but also continues the story up to the present. It presents an original analysis of the ways in which people mainly from current day Lebanon and Syria–the largest group of Arabic-speaking immigrants before World War II–came to view themselves in racial terms and position themselves within racial hierarchies as part of a broader process of ethnic identity formation.

Between Arab and White: Race and Ethnicity in the Early Syrian American Diaspora