The Dream Palace of the Arabs

A Generation's Odyssey

De: Fouad Ajami

Narrado por: Qarie Marshall

From Fouad Ajami, an acclaimed author and chronicler of Arab politics, comes a compelling account of how a generation of Arab intellectuals tried to introduce cultural renewals in their homelands through the forces of modernity and secularism. Ultimately, they came to face disappointment, exile, and, on occasion, death.

Brilliantly weaving together the strands of a tumultuous century in Arab political thought, history, and poetry, Ajami takes us from the ruins of Beirut's once glittering metropolis to the land of Egypt, where struggle rages between a modernist impulse and an Islamist insurgency, from Nasser's pan-Arab nationalist ambitions to the emergence of an uneasy Pax Americana in Arab lands, from the triumphalism of the Gulf War to the continuing anguished debate over the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords.

For anyone who seeks to understand the Middle East, here is an insider's unflinching analysis of the collision between intellectual life and political realities in the Arab world today.

©2009 Fouad Ajami (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

CARE ABOUT ME

After re-listening to Ajami’s book, a major point missed in the first review is Ajami’s poignant and tragic examples of Arab despair in the Middle East. That despair is not about freedom but about care for traditions of the Middle East's ancient and diverse cultures. The monumental discovery of oil roiled religious and ethnic differences in the Middle East. Foreign and local self-interests interfered with the peripatetic freedom of Arab cultures. Adding to that loss of freedom, the discovery of oil changed the relationship between rulers and the ruled.

Leadership that fails to understand and care for all citizens within its borders may last for some years but will ultimately fail. That is the point that is sorely missing in an earlier review of Ajami's insightful history of the Middle East.

Love of the the old land.

The likes of Bernard Lewis, Edward saiid, Hourani...etc may have known the words but they never captured and encapsulated the tunes and essence of the old land and its stories of beauty and misfortune like Fouad Ajami in this gem. A generous to his peers book written by a sculptor of language. Refreshing mastery of his adopted and chosen language reflected and written by a true "Ibn Balad" son of the land who couldn't escape his heritage fever. To be listened to over and over.

Thank you, Fouad and Michelle