The Next Arab Decade: Alternative Futures

This book is concerned with defining the nature of the crisis of the Arab world, with tracing its possible development, and with charting the conditions of its possible outcomes, addressing the next decade from the vantage of 1986 rather than that of 1985.

Table of Contents:
Preface -- Introduction: Patriarchy and Dependency and the Future of Arab Society -- The State, Democracy, and Human Rights -- Forecast for the Future: State and Society in Egypt, Sudan, and Libya in 1995 -- State, Society, and Legitimacy: An Essay on Arab Political Prospects in the 1990s -- The Future of Human Rights in the Arab World -- Democracy, Development, and Human Rights: Can Women Achieve Change Without Conflict? -- The Political Economy of Arab International Relations -- The Shape of Inter-Arab Politics in 1995 -- Unwelcome Guests: The Political Economy of Arab Relations with the Superpowers -- The Economy: Breakthrough or Breakdown? -- The Lean Years: The Political Economy of Arab Oil in the Coming Decade -- Arab Agriculture in 1995: Apocalypse or Muddling Through? -- The Prospects of Technological Growth in Arab Societies: An Analysis of the Potential for Progress Toward Technological Autonomy in the Arab World, 1985–95 -- Cultural Change, Creativity, and Authenticity -- Challenges to Arab Cultural Authenticity -- Cultural Creation in a Fragmented Society -- Social Transformations -- Future Arab Economic-Demographic Potential: Whither Policy? -- Arab Women: 1995 -- Class Structure and Social Change in the Arab World: 1995 -- The Arab-Israeli Conflict -- Israel: The Political Economy of a Garrison State and Its Future -- Palestinian Impasse: Constraints and Opportunities -- The Implications of Current Trends in the Arab-Israeli Military Balance -- Priorities for Arab Studies -- Social Science Research and Arab Studies in the Coming Decade -- In Search of a New Identity of the Social Sciences in the Arab World: Discourse, Paradigm, and Strategy -- Middle East Studies in the United States: The Coming Decade -- Futurology and the Study of the Arab World

About the Author :
Hisham Sharabi earned a Ph.D. in the history of culture at the University of Chicago. He is a professor of history at Georgetown University and has taught at the American University of Beirut. At present, he is also editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies. Dr. Sharabi has written extensively on the Arab world; among his works are Nationalism and Revolution in the Arab World, Palestine and Israel: The Lethal Dilemma, and Arab Intellectuals and the West.