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48195 results in Middle East studies

Page 1 of 2410

The Last Temptation
  • External Intervention in the Israel-Palestine Conflict
  • Rory Miller, Ciarán Ó Cuinn
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2027
    Print publication:
    31 January 2027
  • Why have states continued to intervene in the Israel-Palestine conflict? How have those interventions helped shape the current crisis, and is a better way of engagement possible? Exploring the role of colonial mandates, super-power rivalries and multilateral peace processes, this book considers how states, regional organizations and international institutions have influenced the conflict since 1967. Rory Miller and Ciarán Ó Cuinn explore what these interventions have achieved, where they have fallen short, and why they continue to matter both on the ground and around the world. As the conflict continues to dominate the international diplomatic and political agenda, Miller and Ó Cuinn propose a new framework for external intervention. Building on the 'Parity, then Peace' concept, this approach seeks to ensure that the core issues of the conflict are dealt with on the basis of equality.

The Cambridge Introduction to Sumerian
  • Martin Worthington, Mark K. Chetwood
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    December 2026
    Print publication:
    31 December 2026
  • Older than the pyramids, Sumerian was used in ancient Mesopotamia (Southern Iraq). It is probably the world's first written language, and survives on clay tablets in the cuneiform script, dating from c.3000 BCE to the beginning of the Common Era. It abounds in simple inscriptions, ideal for beginners, but also boasts a wealth of more advanced writings, such as fascinating mythological poetry. This comprehensive textbook equips students to read the full range of texts – including the special variety of the language known as Emesal. Drawing on the authors' experience in the classroom, it uses intuitive terminology and also makes extensive use of diagrams, which unravel the language's structures in an easy-to-learn way. The examples and readings are all taken from original sources. The learning journey is further supported by exercises (with key), a full sign list and glossary, and online recordings with 'approximate pronunciations'.

Salafism in Tunisia
  • Political Engagement and the Advent of Post-Salafism
  • Théo Blanc
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2026
    Print publication:
    30 November 2026
  • By offering a comparative analysis of Salafi movements in Tunisia, Théo Blanc advances a systematic theory explaining variation in Salafi pathways of political engagement, built around the concepts of subjective and processual opportunities. The book first explores how Salafism developed in the country and crystallised into distinct currents – scholastic, political, and Jihadi – and then examines their respective adaptations to the 2010–11 revolution and evolutions during the democratisation decade (2011–21). This evolution culminated in what Blanc calls a shift towards post-Salafism, defined as a re-hierarchisation of actors' priorities in action. Blanc draws on rich fieldwork material, including interviews with the founding figures of Salafism in Tunisia, leading Salafi clerics and ideologues, and Salafi and Islamist party leaders, alongside original documentary sources. In doing so, Salafism in Tunisia makes a significant contribution to key debates in political science and Islamic studies, including inclusion-moderation, post-Islamism, political opportunity structure, politicisation, and the conceptualisation of both Salafism and Islamism.

The Rise and Fall of Tunisian Democracy
  • Populism, Polarization, and the Perils of Power-Sharing
  • Sharan Grewal
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2026
    Print publication:
    30 November 2026

Renewal in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Society
  • Muhammad Al-Atawneh
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2026
    Print publication:
    30 November 2026
  • Renewal in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Society explores the shifting perspectives and debates in contemporary Islamic thought. Seeking solutions to 21st-century social issues and modern Muslim needs, Muhammad Al-Atawneh presents a fresh assessment of Islamic renewal (tajdid), Muslim ethics, and intellectual revitalization, while also reassessing Islam's image and role in the modern world today. He interrogates the dynamics of renewal in Islam by reevaluating the methods by which traditional Islamic principles may be realigned to handle modern challenges. By aligning religious practice with contemporary circumstances, he also examines efforts addressing current social problems and that advance justice, equality, and good governance within the framework of Islamic tradition. Al-Atawneh demonstrates how academic inquiry stimulate a healthy intellectual culture within Muslim society. A transformative examination of renewal within Islamic thought, his astute analysis also shows how Islamic teachings and modern science can coexist, generating a harmonious coexistence between religion and reason.

From First Farmers to First Cities in Western Asia and Europe
  • The Long Revolution
  • Amy Bogaard
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2026
    Print publication:
    30 November 2026
  • The relationship between farming and the emergence cities is a key question in the archaeology of western Asia and Europe.  In this study, Amy Bogaard explores how the earliest villages and cities were sustained through evolving agricultural strategies. Deploying the latest methods and evidence, she offers new approaches for predicting how settlement scale and density shaped agricultural practices, and for reconstructing farming methods as they evolved alongside urbanisation. Bogaard demonstrates how Neolithic farming took off with the integration of small-scale cultivation and herding, held together by the work and ownership claims of households. Urbanisation challenged resilient Neolithic farming practices, as early cities co-evolved with the expansion of low-input cereal monocultures.  Nevertheless, diverse Neolithic farming traditions persisted in these urban landscapes, creating richer agroecologies and more sustainable cities. Bogaard's study offers exciting insights into how farming and cities emerged in the deep past, along with the theory, toolkit, and data necessary for building knowledge of ancient farming, and for reflecting on farming futures.

Higher Education in the Arab Region
  • Resilience, Rebuilding, and Recovery
  • Sansom Milton
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    October 2026
    Print publication:
    31 October 2026
  • The Arab region has suffered over a decade of extreme conflict, with significant repercussions for the development of higher education in conflict-affected countries. Yet higher education remains marginal to recovery debates in the region. This book addresses this gap through comparative analysis of five war-affected contexts: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza. Based on extensive fieldwork and sustained policy engagement, it reveals how universities have endured protracted conflict, adapted under extreme constraints, and participated in reconstruction efforts-often with minimal external support. Challenging dominant approaches to post-conflict intervention, it foregrounds local agency, institutional adaptation, and nationally driven processes. It also documents the shift toward recognizing higher education as both a humanitarian concern and a developmental priority. This is the first study to position universities at the center of recovery discourse in conflict-affected Arab states. This is a Flip it Open title and may be available open access on Cambridge Core.

International Relations of the Middle East
  • Theories and Case Studies
  • Edited by May Darwich, Adham Saouli
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    October 2026
    Print publication:
    31 October 2026

Shell Artefacts
  • An Archaeological Perspective
  • Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    October 2026
    Print publication:
    31 October 2026
  • Shells were an important product in the prehistoric and ancient worlds. Dating back to the Palaeolithic period, shells are among the earliest symbolic artefacts and are a key indicator of human cognitive evolution. In this volume, Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer offers a multi-disciplinary, global survey of shell artefacts in human history. Integrating approaches from biomineralogy, palaeontology, and geoarchaeology, she shows how humans exploited shells as fundamental components of material culture, alongside lithics and ceramics. Bar-Yosef Mayer traces how the transition to farming was accompanied by technological advances and innovations as reflected in new artefact types, including decorative objects, such as pendants and bangles, as well as tools and vessels, such as containers and fish-hooks. Her study also considers the use of shell money as currency in historical periods. Featuring examples of shell technology from around the world, this volume serves as an introduction to the topic and is suitable for use in courses on human prehistory and early civilizations.

Professional Palestinian Women in Israel
  • Diversity and Racism in the Workplace
  • Amalia Sa'ar, Hawazin Younis
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    October 2026
    Print publication:
    31 October 2026
  • Examining the growing numbers of Palestinian women working in Israel as doctors, lawyers, and high-tech engineers, this study documents their efforts to forge successful feminine subjectivities along the fault lines of neoliberal diversity. Through a wide array of interviews, Amalia Sa'ar and Hawazin Younis explore the experiences of women through periods of relative political stability and during war. The book considers their changing attitudes towards success and prestige and their navigation of tensions and conflicting expectations. Additionally, Sa'ar and Younis examine the paradoxical adaptation of neoliberal diversity within Israel's system of racial exclusion and the devastating effects of war on these already precarious mechanisms of inclusion. Finally, this study introduces the concepts of multiple cultural competence and critical cultural competence, highlighting minority women's unique contributions and shifting the burden of inclusion from minorities to the majority.

The Cambridge History of the Crusades
  • Volume 2, Crusade and Settlement
  • Edited by M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, Andrew Jotischky, Thomas Madden, Jonathan Phillips
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    October 2026
    Print publication:
    31 October 2026
  • Volume II offers an authoritative new guide to life in the Crusader States of the Levant and the Eastern Mediterranean. Across nineteen chapters, leading experts explore how the crusaders not only imposed their own ideas and practices on the Levant but also adapted to its diverse landscapes and societies. With a strong emphasis on material culture, this volume offers a series of interpretative essays covering medicine, law, intellectual life and religious practice, while also providing a fresh treatment of topics including warfare, castles, the Military Orders, art, architecture, archaeology, and many aspects of daily life.

Insurgent Witness
  • Archetypes of Action in Revolutionary Iran
  • Arash Davari
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    October 2026
    Print publication:
    31 October 2026
  • How do we describe the collective identity of people who make a popular revolution? Notwithstanding marked differences, most accounts understand revolutionary collectives as partisan and relegate spectators to irrelevance-or, worse, to the ignominy of cowards and traitors. Revisiting histories of the 1979 revolution in Iran, Arash Davari explores how millions of people defied expectations and joined popular assemblies to demand the fall of the Pahlavi regime. Through the lens of recent global social movements, Insurgent Witness presents an archetype of collective identity as partisan and spectator at once. Combining novel findings with a fresh methodological approach to previously considered collections, this book presents a distinct concept of revolutionary subjectivity-one that describes the terms of mass revolt in Iran and at the same time challenges prevailing assumptions about social change and popular sovereignty in contemporary political thought.

The Cambridge History of the Crusades
  • Volume 3, Crusading in the West and the Legacies of the Crusades
  • Edited by M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, Andrew Jotischky, Thomas Madden, Jonathan Phillips
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    September 2026
    Print publication:
    30 September 2026
  • Volume III focuses on the evolution of crusading beyond the Holy Land, the ways in which crusading impacted the people of Europe, and the cultural, political and religious legacies that were left behind. As a major cultural driver of the medieval age, it did much to shape religious thinking and practices, as well as influencing royal, knightly and civic ideology. Across twenty-one chapters, leading experts reveal the impact the Crusades had on women, Jews and emphasises the prominent presence of the Military Orders. Further essays show the rapid diversification of crusading to encompass enemies of the Catholic Church in Iberia, the Baltic and eastern Europe, the heretical Cathars, as well as the Ottoman Turks in the sixteenth century. It concludes with extensive coverage of the vast and diverse legacies of the Crusades, revealing the complexity and contemporary relevance of these contrasting memories in the West and the Muslim world.

The Cambridge History of the Crusades
  • Volume 1, Sources and Crusading to the Holy Land
  • Edited by M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, Andrew Jotischky, Thomas Madden, Jonathan Phillips
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    September 2026
    Print publication:
    30 September 2026
  • Volume I provides this generation's definitive account to crusading history, beginning with the First Crusade in 1095, through Richard the Lionheart, Saladin and the Third Crusade (1187–92), to the fall of the Holy Land in 1291. Across twenty-four chapters, leading experts also provide broad coverage of the source material, delivering fresh perspectives and interpretations. The volume brings together new insights into the establishment of crusader rule and the ongoing interaction of these new Christian territories – in military, religious, cultural and economic terms – with local societies and regimes, most notably the Muslims and the Byzantine Greeks.

Economy of Revolution
  • Globalization, Violence and Security in Late Ottoman Empire
  • Ramazan Hakkı Öztan
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    September 2026
    Print publication:
    30 September 2026
  • How did the global circulation of modern technologies of warfare transform armed resistance? Focusing on the European territories of the Ottoman Empire, Ramazan Hakkı Öztan explores how revolutionary organizations navigated a world newly rich in material resources by the late nineteenth century. Unlike those who came before them, these revolutionaries operated in an increasingly connected global economy of violence that fed military-grade surplus weapons and newly invented explosives into their hands. Tracing commodity flows, Öztan profiles arms dealers, smugglers, and informers active in this economy of revolution. While revolutionaries tapped into transnational circuits, exchanged technical know-how, and engaged in calculated acts of violence, bureaucrats sought to dismantle black markets, gather counterintelligence, and wage their own campaigns of repression. Situating these connected histories across time and space, this global history explains the transformation of rebellion and imperial coercion by the turn of the twentieth century. This is a Flip it Open title and may be available open access on Cambridge Core.

Sex Between Men in Early Muslim Discourses
  • A Historical Genealogy
  • Sara Omar
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    September 2026
    Print publication:
    30 September 2026
  • Throughout Islamic history, Muslim jurists have prohibited sex between men. Yet, this prohibition was not based solely on scriptural commands. Tracing a genealogy of Muslim discourses across the first five centuries of Islam, this study situates liwāṭ within wider debates about the body, gender, morality, medicine, and religion. Sara Omar examines changing interpretations of the Lot narrative, the evolution of ḥadīth traditions, and the gradual formation of Islamic legal frameworks. Through close readings of legal, exegetical, medical, and ethical texts, the book uncovers deep disagreements over evidence, authority, culpability, and punishment, revealing a tradition marked by contestation rather than consensus. Omar engages Jewish, Christian, and Hellenic intellectual legacies to shows how early Muslims negotiated the boundaries of nature, desire, and the permissible. Accessible yet analytically rigorous, the book offers new perspectives on Islamic law, sexual ethics, and the historical roots of contemporary debates.

The Ideology of ISIS and the Roots of Terrorism
  • Asaad Alsaleh
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    September 2026
    Print publication:
    30 September 2026
  • In this groundbreaking study, Asaad Alsaleh reveals how ISIS weaponized Islamic texts to transform Islamic theology into a tool of ideological violence. Drawing on close readings of Arabic primary sources, he explores the historic notion of takfir – excommunication -- from the 'apostasy wars' that followed Prophet Muhammad's death through modern jihadist movements. Alsaleh demonstrates how political authorities systematically exploited excommunication to eliminate perceived threats throughout Muslim history. He also examines the theological mechanisms through which the group legitimizes violence. Combining theological, historical, and ideological analysis, Alsaleh argues that ISIS pursues a utopian project based on man-made ideology rather than divine revelation, thus distinguishing authentic Islam (rooted in the Qur'an and authenticated Prophetic hadith) from human interpretations that have been tragically conflated with the religion itself. Alsaleh concludes with suggestions as to how to solve the problems that ideology poses, emphasizing that clear efforts must be made to disentangle ideology from religion.

The Social Networks of Early Medieval Trading Emporia
  • Harbouring Strangers in a Viking World
  • Søren Michael Sindbæk
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    August 2026
    Print publication:
    31 August 2026
  • Trading emporia emerged in Northern Europe in the Early Middle Ages and were the first coin-based markets and urban settlements in this region. In this study, Søren Michael Sindbæk proposes a new account of the origins of these trading centres by tracing their role in hosting strangers. Sindbæk proposes that 'weak' social ties are a widely overlooked middle ground in pre-modern societies that bridge the gap between 'strong' family ties and formal institutions. By adapting cultural norms, networks, and institutions, it was possible to combine a high level of trust within an open form of society. Emporia developed when the ancient conventions of hosting and guest-friendship became insufficient to accommodate the growing connections between peoples brought together through seafaring. Sindbæk demonstrates that the history of emporia is closely linked to the expansion of maritime trade, colonization, piracy, and warfare – the basis for what we know today as the Viking Age.

Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
  • A Critical Study of Peace Negotiations, Mediation and Facilitation Between Israel and the PLO
  • Raphael Cohen-Almagor
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    August 2026
    Print publication:
    31 August 2026
  • Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is aimed at politicians, diplomats, policymakers, scholars, journalists, and informed readers seeking to understand why peace efforts have repeatedly failed-and how true reconciliation remains possible. Based on over one hundred interviews with Middle-Eastern, European, and American leaders, alongside extensive archival research, the book offers rare insight into the dynamics of diplomacy. It reveals how trust, fairness, and political courage are vital for peace. By analysing pivotal moments-from Oslo to Camp David and the Abbas-Olmert talks, it identifies recurring mistakes and proposes strategies to foster mutual recognition and lasting coexistence. Both authoritative and accessible, the book blends history, law, ethics, and international relations into a practical roadmap for future peace efforts. Its interdisciplinary approach and use of primary sources make it both authoritative and engaging. Readers will come away with a deeper understanding of the conflict and the tools needed to help resolve it.

Legal Theory in the Colonies
  • Hindu and Jewish Scholars under British Rule
  • Assaf Likhovski
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    August 2026
    Print publication:
    31 August 2026
  • In colonial India and Mandatory Palestine, early-twentieth-century legal scholars made important contributions to the study of the nature of law, particularly by analyzing Hindu and Jewish law – their ancient religious systems. This book reconstructs the lives and ideas of these scholars, revealing a forgotten global wave of jurisprudential innovation that appeared across many territories in the non-Western world. The book challenges the view that non-Western legal scholars working in the colonies were passive recipients of Western ideas. It argues that Indian and Jewish thinkers used Western historical and sociological approaches to law to reimagine Hindu and Jewish law, and to assert their relevance to modern legal and constitutional debates. Though historical in scope, the story this book tells is also relevant to contemporary tensions between Western liberal law and non-Western religious legal traditions. This title is available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Page 1 of 2410