Prior to 2011, popular imagination perceived the Muslim Middle East as unchanging and unchangeable, frozen in its own traditions and history. In Life as Politics, Asef Bayat argues that such presumptions fail to recognize the routine, yet important, ways in which ordinary people make meaningful change through everyday actions. First published just months before the Arab Spring swept across the region, this timely and prophetic book sheds light on the ongoing acts of protest, practice, and direct daily action. The second edition includes three new chapters on the Arab Spring and Iran's Green Movement and is fully updated to reflect recent events. At heart, the book remains a study of agency in times of constraint. In addition to ongoing protests, millions of people across the Middle East are effecting transformation through the discovery and creation of new social spaces within which to make their claims heard. This eye-opening book makes an important contribution to global debates over the meaning of social movements and the dynamics of social change.

This edition presents an intensive update of facts, figures and events. It contains extensive discussion of democracy and contains an abundance of visual aids and maps.

The author, analyzing major social groups in this area, treats particularly the "new middle class," a group socially isolated from the traditional life of Islam and committed to a wide-ranging modernizing impulse. Originally published in 1963. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Aimed at undergraduate-level courses, this brand-new textbook provides an overview of Middle Eastern politics, offering in-depth examination of the forces of stability, change, uncertainty, and progress in the region. Building on both historical and contemporary analysis, the chapters are timely, engaging, and provocative, covering topics such as: Turmoil and transition in Middle Eastern politics The Arab-Israeli conflict The Persian Gulf and global security The rise of the internet Terrorism and the Islamic State US-Iran relations The role of new regional players, such as China, India, and Russia Increasing investment in wind and solar energy in the post-carbon era. Providing a unique perspective on the major themes and current state of knowledge about the region, this new textbook will be invaluable to students of Middle Eastern politics.

This text takes thematic and multidisciplinary approaches that integrates regional experiences into a whole. Major themes include political development, economic development, international relations, Islam - mainstream and jihadist, colonialism and post-colonialism; and recent political changes, with particular emphasis on the U.S. intervention in Iraq and the rising interest in democracy regionally.

Offers a critical and realistic reassessment of the threats posed to the environment in the Middle East, and what can be done about them.

Taking a comparative approach, this book considers the ways in which political regimes have changed since the Arab Spring. It addresses a series of questions about political change in the context of the revolutions, upheavals and protests that have taken place in North Africa and the Arab Middle East since December 2010, and looks at the various processes have been underway in the region: democratisation (Tunisia), failed democratic transitions (Egypt, Libya and Yemen), political liberalisation (Morocco) and increased authoritarianism (Bahrain, Kuwait, Syria). In other countries, in contrast to these changes, the authoritarian regimes remain intact (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Arab United Emirates.