Fouad Ajami Books

Fouad Ajami offers an insightful exploration of Saudi Arabia's political culture and its international impact from the early 1990s to today. The narrative delves into the role of Islam in public life and examines the Saudi leadership's perspectives on U.S. administrations, particularly under Bush and Obama. This work enhances the understanding of Saudi Arabia's internal dynamics and its foreign relations, addressing a crucial gap in contemporary political discourse.

Ajami's acclaimed study, updated in 1992 in light of recent turbulent events, remains an indispensable guide to the politics of the Arab world.

From Fouad Ajami, an acclaimed author and chronicler of Arab politics, comes a compelling account of how a generation of Arab intellectuals tried to introduce cultural renewals in their homelands through the forces of modernity and secularism. Ultimately, they came to face disappointment, exile, and, on occasion, death. Brilliantly weaving together the strands of a tumultuous century in Arab political thought, history, and poetry, Ajami takes us from the ruins of Beirut's once glittering metropolis to the land of Egypt, where struggle rages between a modernist impulse and an Islamist insurgency, from Nasser's pan-Arab nationalist ambitions to the emergence of an uneasy Pax Americana in Arab lands, from the triumphalism of the Gulf War to the continuing anguished debate over the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords. For anyone who seeks to understand the Middle East, here is an insider's unflinching analysis of the collision between intellectual life and political realities in the Arab world today.

From the author of The Arab Predicament and Dream Palace of the Arabs comes a beautiful and haunting memoir of growing up in Lebanon in the '50s and '60s-the story of a sensitive young man and budding intellectual caught between tradition and modernity, east and west.

An analysis of the turmoil in the Middle East journeys behind the familiar facade of Iraq to argue that troubles in the Arab world can be linked to America's limited understanding of the region, thirst for oil, and need to deal with terrorism.