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Reviews: ‘David Gardner’s book is the most lively, well-informed and controversial overview of the Middle East to appear for several years. It will instruct, entertain, but also infuriate many readers, because his rapier thrusts invariably strike home. To understand this turbulent region, this is a must read. David Gardner is one of Britain’s leading foreign affairs experts. His sources are unique, his range awesome and his indictment of Arab tyranny and Western connivance devastating and unanswerable. Patrick Seale, author of Asad of Syria At last, a book that goes to the heart of the eternal Middle East Crisis. David Gardner writes courageously and candidly of the West’s ‘support and indulgence’ of corrupt Arab tyrannies, an indulgence that far from securing stability, breeds extremism. He also spells out how US and UK support for Israel has solidified even in the face of Israel’s strengthening grip on the Palestinians and the occupied West Bank. This is a book that should be in the hand baggage of every one of President Obama’s Middle East negotiators. Jon Snow, Channel Four News ‘timely, absorbing, and deeply disturbing...Last Chance is central to any understanding of the problems and prospects of the Middle East in the twenty-first century.’ Avi Shlaim, Professor of International Relations, St. Antony’s College, Oxford ‘The basic message is clear and compelling. Stop propping up Arab autocrats, don’t reject democratic election outcomes the West doesn’t like, and don’t retreat into any other form of ‘shallow realism’: just let Arabs decide their own future in whatever form they wish. Few observers of the region are more knowledgeable or experienced than David Gardner, and his book – lively, opinionated and immensely readable – is an overdue wake-up call for policymakers.’ Gareth Evans, President, International Crisis Group, and former Foreign Minister of Australia Description : In this magisterial work, one of the English language media’s most respected authorities on the Arab world, David Gardner, addresses the urgent question: why does the Middle East keep missing its appointment with modernity? For too long the question has been the preserve of orientalists like Bernard Lewis. Clear sighted, never flinching from unpalatable truths, Gardner draws on his acute grasp of history and long experience covering the region as he examines key countries from Syria to Saudi Arabia to understand why conflict, sectarianism and despotism continue to flourish in the Arab world, even as they decline every where else. The ‘Arab Exception’, he argues, is largely a problem of the West’s own-making. By supporting tyrants, fuelling the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and demonising democratically-elected Islamist parties, the West in general but America in particular has incubated a region resistant to political and economic reform and suppurating with resentment. With a new US administration planning its Middle East policy, Gardner argues for nothing less than a total reappraisal of what realpolitik means in the region. The traditional shibboleths: support Israel, build up a network of reliable strongmen, mollify the Saudis, suppress Islamism, simply will not do in the twenty-first century, he argues. Both an introduction to the Modern Middle East and an impassioned polemic, Last Chance is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of the region. Contents : Preface • The Arab Political Jungle • The Despot in his Labyrinth • The Janus of Islamic Revivalism • The Time of the Shia • Arabia Infelix • Getting Away with Murder? • A Naked, Poor and Mangled Peace • Pax Arabica: the Middle East and the West About the Author : David Gardner is Chief Leader Writer and Associate Editor at the Financial Times. He was the paper’s Middle East Editor from 1995-1999. In 2003 he won the David Watt prize for political journalism for his writing on the Arab world. Target Audience : Scholars of international relations and middle east studies.
ISBN - 9781848850415
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Pages : 256
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