Shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a short book (137 pages) by Martin Kramer entitled... Show moreShortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a short book (137 pages) by Martin Kramer entitled Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America. Kramer is the editor of the Middle East Quarterly, a journal founded by Daniel Pipes and others who feel that the discipline of Middle Eastern Studies, as practised in the United States, has become too pro-Arab and too 'dovish'. Kramer, a former director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, shares Pipes's views, though he has generally been less strident in expressing them. Ivory Towers on Sand is primarily a critique of scholars dealing with issues related to American foreign policy in the Middle East. Kramer is not especially troubled by current trends in the study of Sufi poetry. Show less
Islamism and nationalism are conventionally thought of as antithetical ideologies, yet there is in fact often a nationalistic dimension to Islamism. One is reminded of the relationship between... Show moreIslamism and nationalism are conventionally thought of as antithetical ideologies, yet there is in fact often a nationalistic dimension to Islamism. One is reminded of the relationship between Marxism and nationalism. In principle, Marxists condemn nationalism, as do Islamists. Yet the revolutions waged in the name of Marxist ideology since World War II were all fuelled by nationalistic resentment of foreign domination. Such resentment, among other things, also fuelled the principal Islamist movements of the late 20th century. In both cases, an ostensibly universalistic ideology has actually often had a more parochial nationalistic character in practice. Show less
