Dream Palace Of The Arabs, The(ISBN=9780375704741)

　　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.

Preface
A Note on Sources and Translation
Prologue:
THE INHERITANCE
The Suicide of Khalil Hawi:
REQUIEM FOR A GENERATION
In the Shape of the Ancestors
In the Land of Egypt:
THE  SAI,NTS  AND  THE  WORLDLINESS
The Orphaned Peace
Source Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

　　An important and illuminating book . . . a valuable testament to a tragic generation that tried to bridge the Arab past with modern ideals. --The New York Times
　　"The Dream Palace of the Arabs is an absorbing and sadly moving account of what political and economic failures on a grand scale have meant in human terms and at an individual level." --The Washington Post Book World
　　"Eloquent. . . . A clear-eyed look at the lost hopes of the Arabs. It opens the door to the thought processes of a society whose motivations have been little understood and often feared. The Dream Palace of the Arabs is a courageous book." --The Christian Science Monitor -- Review