SIMON W. MURDEN, Islam, the Middle East, and the New Global Hegemony (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2002). Pp. 235. $19.95 paper.

Extract

Simon Murden has written a timely book mainly to describe and highlight the position of Islam and the Middle East in the overall global environment, characterized by Western—and particularly, American—hegemony. The book is valuable to undergraduate students, but it can also be a quick refresher on the topic for some graduate students. The book does not attempt to provide new theories in explaining the inferior position of the Middle East in the global system; nor does it claim to be an in-depth analysis of the reasons behind a global system dominated by the West. Murden focuses on the challenge posed to Islam by Westernization and how Islam and the Middle East have responded and adapted to this challenge: it describes the advent and evolution of modern globalized politics and economics and how Muslim societies in the Middle East are responding and adapting to it. The book is divided into an Introduction and two main parts, with a total of seven chapters. Part 1 deals with Islam and global hegemony, and Part 2 discusses Muslim resistance and adaptation in the liberal international order.