Soner Cagaptay. Islam, Secularism, and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who is a Turk? London and New York: Routledge 2006 162 pages, notes, index. Cloth US$65.00 ISBN 0-415-38458-3

Abstract

Part three, "Postcolonial Lives," is an important section whose title should be put in quotation marks, in my view, since the region is still dependent on a global political and economic structure dictated by world powers and organizations. For example, one biography is of a Moroccan migrant worker, poignantly addressing issues of Arab labor migration in Western Europe, the internationalization of labor, and globalization of the world economy. Life stories of people in the region in the last few decades are compiled in the last section, "Contemporary Lives." For example, one biography is of an Iranian female community leader that illuminates the history of gender relations since the Iranian revolution. Biography five, about a West Bank settler, is preceded by a valuable note on the politics of colonization of Palestine and the settlement projects there. In sum, the book provides a non-elite historiography of the region through the personal stories of ordinary people, and some not so ordinary, and gives much-needed voice to people in the Middle East. This work is a necessary complement to large-scale historiography, grounding historical processes that shaped and affected the Middle East, such as colonialism, Zionism, neocolonialism, and globalization, and showing how diverse individuals responded to these historical factors. It illustrates the range of experiences they navigated that were not simply about formal "politics." Although the book does not represent all the groups living in the Middle East, it is an excellent volume that advances our knowledge of people from around the region. I have been teaching the book myself for two consecutive years and students have responded very well to this text, so I highly recommend it for courses. A book that complements these social and oral histories well is a new text by Ilan Pappc, The Modem History of the Middle Hast (2005), also a non-traditional text book that provides a comprehensive introductory history of the region utilizing a critical approach based on Edward Said's critique of Orientalism. Magid Shihade Berkeley City College