Media coverage of the book, What's Really Wrong with the Middle East

Book Review: What’s Really Wrong with the Middle East by Brian Whitaker
Heba Elsayed. LSE Middle East Centre, 23 October 2013

La Arabia Infeliz
Review in Spanish by Haizam Amirah Fernández. Foreign Policy, April-May 2010 (Spanish edition).

Take a look inside 
Review by Deen Sharp. Executive magazine, 3 March 2010

Review: What’s Really Wrong With the Middle East 
By Magda Abu-Fadil. Huffington Post, 3 March 2010.

Review: What’s Really Wrong with the Middle East? 
By Khalid Lum. Northeastern University Political Review, 3 February 2010. (Don't be put off by the typing mistakes – the review makes some perceptive points.)

All in the tyrannical Arab family 
New York Times, 8 February 2010.

Franchised repression  
Review by James Dorsey. Qantara.de, January 2010.

Review: What’s Really Wrong With the Middle East 
By Osama Diab. Egypt Today, January 2010.

The relentless search for the core problem of the Middle East 
البحث المضني عن لب مشكلة الشرق الأوسط
Review in Arabic by Muhannad al-Haj Ali. Al-Hayat, 6 December 2009. 

Review: What’s Really Wrong With the Middle East 
By Nesrine Malik. Pickled Politics website, 10 December 2009

Book review: 'What’s Really Wrong with the Middle East?'
By Sumayyah Meehan. Elan website, 30 November, 2009

Caught in a vicious circle 
Review by Avi Shlaim. The Guardian, 28 November 2009

What's Really Wrong with the Middle East 
Review by Patrick Seale. Al-Hayat, 20 November 2009

Where is the real fault in the Middle East? 
أين الخلل الحقيقي في الشرق الأوسط؟
Review in Arabic by Patrick Seale. Al-Hayat, 20 November 2009

Lost in the desert 
Review by Sholto Byrnes. New Statesman, 12 November 2009

'Regimes' vs 'People'   
War and Peace blog. 11 November 2009

Arabia Infelix 
Review by Issandr El Amrani. Middle East International, 6 November 2009

Purposeful critique  
Review by Sally Bland. Jordan Times, 2 November 2009

Veils of ignorance and fear  
Sholto Byrnes. New Statesman God Blog, 7 October 2009 

Syria News Wire 
28 September, 2009

Away from The Economist, former Guardian Middle East editor Brian Whitaker (whose tantalising new book, What’s Really Wrong With the Middle East, has just been published by Saqi) explains exactly what Orientalism is, and what it isn’t. In the article published last year, he accuses many academics of using the word, without understanding it.

“If the Iraq war achieved nothing else, it did at least remind us that orientalism can serve as the cultural arm of western imperialism. But is it always so? Orientalism, for Said, was a one-way process — “us” otherising “them” — though, as he seemed to acknowledge towards the end of his life, it’s actually a lot more complicated than that. …

In 1978 it was scarcely imaginable that large numbers of Arabs and Muslims would one day reclaim orientalism for themselves and, far from objecting to being designated as “the other”, would turn it into a badge of honour. That, basically, is what happened. Islamists and Arab traditionalists have embraced a kind of reverse orientalism that caricatures and stereotypes “the west” while espousing “traditional” (sometimes newly-invented) “Arab-Islamic” values.”

Essential reading.

Cooking freedom 
A review, of sorts, by someone who hasn't read the book and doesn't intend to. Arab Woman Blues, 2 September 2009.