Matai ṿe-ekh humtsa ha-ʻam ha-Yehudi?

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Saïd Amir Arjomand

Much of the Western world responded to Iran's recent post-election upheaval with surprise. The demands of protesters left many pundits scrambling to explain what they perceived as unprecedented politicization of the citizenry. The author analyzes Iran's political and ideological transformation in the post-Khomeini period. For many Americans, Iran is our most dangerous enemy--part of George W. Bush's "axis of evil" even before the appearance of Ahmadinejad. But what is the reality? How did Ahmadinejad rise to power, and how much power does he really have? What are the chances of normalizing relations with Iran? In After Khomeini, Saïd Amir Arjomand paints a subtle and perceptive portrait of contemporary Iran. This work, a sequel to Arjomand's acclaimed The Turban for the Crown, examines Iran under the successors of Ayatollah Khomeini up to the present day. He begins, as the Islamic Republic did, with Khomeini, offering a brilliant capsule biography of the man who masterminded the revolution that overthrew the Shah. Arjomand draws clear distinctions between the moderates of the initial phrase of the revolution, radicals, pragmatists, and hardliners, the latter best exemplified by Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Taking a chronological and thematic approach, he traces the emergence and consolidation of the present system of collective rule by clerical councils and the peaceful transition to dual leadership by the ayatollah as the supreme guide and the subordinate president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He explains the internal political quarrels among Khomeini's heirs as a struggle over his revolutionary legacy. And he outlines how the ruling clerical elite and the nation's security forces are interdependent politically and economically, speculating on the potential future role of the Revolutionary Guards. -- Publisher description.

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Stanley Karnow

This book is an account of America's imperial experience in the Philippines from 1898 to 1946. Stanley Karnow, author of Vietnam: A History, has now written an enthralling account of an almost forgotten subject: America's imperial experience in the Philippines. Panoramic in scope, profound in its perceptions and compassionate in its human portraits, In Our Image is an exciting, heroic, tragic, colorful and often comic narrative drawn from many hitherto unpublished documents as well as hundreds of interviews with American and Filipino participants. Above all, its brilliant descriptions and analysis of this important chapter in American history holds lessons for the present and future. No other book on the subject is as comprehensive. - Jacket flap.

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Emilio del Valle Escalante

"This book focuses on the emergence and political-cultural implications of Guatemala's Maya movement. It explores how, since the 1970s, indigenous peoples have been challenging established, hegemonic narratives of modernity, history, nation, and cultural identity as these relate to the indigenous world. For the most part, these narratives have been fabricated by non-indigenous writers who have had the power not only to produce and spread knowledge but also to speak for and about the Maya world. Contemporary Maya narratives promote nationalisms based on the reaffirmation of Maya ethnicity and languages that constitute what it means to be Maya in present-day society, as well as political-cultural projects oriented toward the future."--BOOK JACKET.

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Charles Bracelen Flood

Historian-biographer Charles Bracelen Flood brings to life the drama of Lincoln's final year, in which he oversaw the last campaigns of the Civil War, was reelected as president, and laid out his majestic vision for the nation's future in a reunified South and in the expanding West. In that crucial year, the Civil War was far from won: as the year began, Lincoln had yet to appoint Ulysses S. Grant as the general-in-chief who would finally bring victory. At the same time, with the North sick of the war, Lincoln was facing a reelection battle in which hundreds of thousands of "Peace Democrats" were ready to negotiate to leave the Confederacy as a separate American nation. In his personal life, he had to deal with the erratic behavior of his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and was unknowingly stalked by John Wilkes Booth.--From publisher description.