The Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey

272 Pages·1999·1.44 MB·English

by  Fouad Ajami

Fouad Ajami’s
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THE DREAM PALACE OF THE ARABS

“Mr. Ajami is deeply schooled in his subject. His writing is
smooth, evocative, richly cadenced…. One reads on, grateful for the
intimacy of Mr. Ajami’s portrait, which could only have been drawn
by a figure who is himself a kind of bridge between the two worlds of
Arabia and the West.”
—The New York Times

“A remarkable mix of the lyrical and the analytical.”
—The New Republic

“Mr. Ajami never flinches from judgment, but The Dream Palace
of the Arabs is more a eulogy for an enlightened intellectual movement
than a rebuke of Arab society…. Mr. Ajami tells his story masterfully.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“This richly textured, informative and discursive book examines
the fit—or misfit—between ideas and politics in the Arab world of
recent years…. Ironic and insightful, this work is vintage Ajami.”
—Foreign Affairs

“A compassionate survey of the intellectual movements of the
post-World War II Arab world…. There are great [Arab] writers still
living, Ajami points out, who can transcend the stilted confines of
current Arab thought. As long as they and Mr. Ajami continue to write,
there is hope.”
—The Washington Times

“[A] bold, imaginative and sure-to-be controversial book…. A
vivid and often moving account of Arab thought today against the
background of the lost era of progressive pan-Arab nationalism and
high hopes.”
—The New York Times Book Review

Fouad Ajami
ALSO BY

The Vanished Imam

Beirut: City of Regrets

The Arab Predicament
Fouad Ajami
THE DREAM PALACE OF THE ARABS

Fouad Ajami is the Majid Khadduri Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at
The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins
University. Born in the south of Lebanon and raised in Beirut, he is a
contributing editor for The New Republic and U.S. News and World Report and a
member of the editorial board of Foreign Affairs. He is the author of The
Vanished Imam; Beirut: City of Regrets; and The Arab Predicament. He has
received a MacArthur Fellowship for his work on Middle Eastern politics and
culture. He lives in New York City.

For Tahseen Basheer
There was room enough there to place any story, depth enough there
for any passion, variety enough there for any setting, darkness enough
to bury … millions of lives.

—JOSEPH CONRAD