Middle East Near You

Ulf Laessing’s book Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi is published at a time when it has never been so important to know what is happening in Libya, but few outside...

Following the death of his father Hafez Al-Assad, Bashar Al-Assad official became president at only 34 years old

The nature of authoritarian rule in Syria remains little understood outside the country. As a notoriously closed society with limited access to the outside world before the 2000s, with...

Ahmed El Shamsy’s Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed An Intellectual Tradition takes us into the story of how seminal works of Islamic philosophy, theology,...

The Caliphate of Man: Popular Sovereignty in Modern Islamic Thought by Andrew F March comes to us at an interesting time. The 2011 Arab Spring led many across the...

Events in the Arab world and beyond over the past decade have ignited an intense debate about Islam, Muslims and political engagement. A common theme of western historical research...

Professor Ilan Pappé cautions against overly optimistic readings of the Netanyahu affair

Over the summer of 2019, observers of events in Syria were left bemused by the news that Rami Makhlouf had been placed under house arrest. It simply didn’t make...

For the past few weeks, Lebanon has been rocked by anti-government protests calling for a change in the ruling system and an end to corruption, economic decay and political...

What is the difference between a democratic society and a dictatorship? In a nutshell, a death in a democracy is a personal tragedy, but in a dictatorship it is...

The Sacking of Fallujah: A People’s History by Ross Caputi, Richard Hil and Donna Mulhearn makes for chilling reading as it takes us inside the three sieges that the...

It is not usual to begin a book review with a quote from elsewhere, but, “Bad men need nothing more to compress their ends, than that good men should...

Could Benny Gantz be the new face of Israeli politics?

Is Netanyahu's anti-Palestinian rhetoric enough to keep him in power despite corruption allegations?

“When ISIS soldiers arrest me and kill me, it will be okay, because while they will cut off my head, I’ll still have dignity, which is better than living...

'Drop BP. Drop BP'

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini arrives back in Iran after 15 years of exile, signalling the start of the Iranian revolution

Professor Nadia Yaqub speaks to MEMO about her book "Palestinian Cinema in the Days of Revolution" which launched in London during the Palestine Film Festival