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The New Middle East: What Everyone Needs to Know®
In the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, the American invasion of Iraq, and the Arab uprisings of 2010-11, a new Middle East has emerged. The Syrian civil war has displaced half the country's population, and ISIS and other jihadi groups thrive in the political vacuum there and in Iraq, setting a new standard for political violence. Meanwhile, regimes in Egypt and Bahrain have become even more repressive after the uprisings there, and Libya and Yemen have virtually ceased to exist as states.
The hallmarks of this new Middle East are rebellion and repression, proxy wars, sectarian strife, the rise of the Islamic State, and intraregional polarization. International and regional actors stoke the flames, with the United States and Russia seeking to reposition themselves in the region and Saudi Arabia and Iran vying for supremacy. In the long term, perils including climate change, food and water insecurity, and population growth, along with bad governance and stagnant economies, will determine the destiny of the region.
In The New Middle East: What Everyone Needs to Know?, renowned Middle East scholar James L. Gelvin explains all these developments and more in a concise question-and-answer format. Outlining the social, political, and economic contours of the New Middle East, he illuminates the current crisis in the region and explores how the region will continue to change in the decades to come.
The hallmarks of this new Middle East are rebellion and repression, proxy wars, sectarian strife, the rise of the Islamic State, and intraregional polarization. International and regional actors stoke the flames, with the United States and Russia seeking to reposition themselves in the region and Saudi Arabia and Iran vying for supremacy. In the long term, perils including climate change, food and water insecurity, and population growth, along with bad governance and stagnant economies, will determine the destiny of the region.
In The New Middle East: What Everyone Needs to Know?, renowned Middle East scholar James L. Gelvin explains all these developments and more in a concise question-and-answer format. Outlining the social, political, and economic contours of the New Middle East, he illuminates the current crisis in the region and explores how the region will continue to change in the decades to come.
192 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 12, 2023
64 people are currently reading
215 people want to read
About the author
James L. Gelvin
14 books32 followersJames L. Gelvin is an American scholar of Middle Eastern history. He has been a faculty member in the department of history at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) since 1995 and has written extensively on the history of the modern Middle East, with particular emphasis on nationalism and the social and cultural history of the modern Middle East.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
June 3, 2019
I wanted to give this book 5 stars because of how easy it was to read. Gelvin provides a succint Western view of the Middle East from an American perspective by discussing regional divisions and economy, taking us back to when Britain converted to oil from coal. The author suggests that the conversion is not what led to the turmoil in the MENA region today but I beg to differ. Author is also biased on Syria by taking the mainstream view to explain the refugee crisis when he could have done more research. He acknowledges that Israel has the highest employment for women compared to other MENA nations but fails to mention that Israel requires women to serve in the military.
March 24, 2024
Probably as good of an introduction to the political climate of the post-Arab-Spring Middle East as you are going to get at this length and readability. Of course, this being a book from 2017, it is necessarily outdated on a few fronts - it's sidelining of the Palestine question is especially glaring, even pre-Oct-7th - but it provides enough of a baseline for the political movements in the surrounding region that I don't think you would need too many supplemental materials to get yourself up to date as a casual observer. The chapter on Syria is especially impressive for how relatively well it compresses what is, in my opinion, the single most convoluted conflict in modern history.
I will say, however, that while I don't doubt Gelvin's authenticity as a journalist, his ideological slant is what ages this book more than anything else. He uncritically accepts a ton of US State Department narratives that have been proven either grossly misrepresentative of the facts or outright false and treats the Obama administration as a sort of positive reforming force within US foreign policy that it simply never was. I was shocked to see him write about the downscaling of US military presence in the region with only passing mention of the transition to drone combat and no mention at all of the massive proliferation of American PMCs in the military's stead.
Still, this is very useful as a jumping off point for anyone who is interested in studying the region but doesn't know where to start. Just remember that, while the question-answer format is very engaging, history is never that simple.
I will say, however, that while I don't doubt Gelvin's authenticity as a journalist, his ideological slant is what ages this book more than anything else. He uncritically accepts a ton of US State Department narratives that have been proven either grossly misrepresentative of the facts or outright false and treats the Obama administration as a sort of positive reforming force within US foreign policy that it simply never was. I was shocked to see him write about the downscaling of US military presence in the region with only passing mention of the transition to drone combat and no mention at all of the massive proliferation of American PMCs in the military's stead.
Still, this is very useful as a jumping off point for anyone who is interested in studying the region but doesn't know where to start. Just remember that, while the question-answer format is very engaging, history is never that simple.
June 23, 2018
really concisely written and focused. The q and a format made it very accessible and easy to read
May 16, 2024
As someone with absolutely no context this was a helpful guide for understanding the big picture social, economic, and political impacts of the Middle East post Arab spring
October 4, 2018
[Note: There are multiple books with the same title as this one.]
Written by historian and author of a related volume, The Arab Uprising: What Everyone Needs to Know, this book could have been titled “The Contemporary History of the Middle East.” Here, “The Middle East” is defined as spanning from Morocco on the west to Iran on the east, a region more dependent on oil revenues that any other part of the world and comprising about half a billion people. The term “The New Middle East” was coined by US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and later elaborated upon in the journal Foreign Affairs by policy analyst Richard N. Haass [p. 21], when the old, relatively-peaceful ME (from the US viewpoint) came crashing down with the invasion of Iraq.
Gelvin begins by discussing the region’s past, 1945-2011, which he entitles “Before the Deluge” (ch. 1, pp. 1-23) and an overview of the Arab Uprisings (ch. 2, pp. 24-49). He then discusses the Syria embroglio (ch. 3, pp. 50-81), the rise and decline of ISIS (ch. 4, pp. 82-111), patrons, proxies, and freelancers (ch. 5, pp. 112-136), and human security in the New Middle East (ch. 6, pp. 137-167). There is no separate concluding section to wrap up the discussions and to point to what might be expected in the future, perhaps because any predictions for such a volatile region may turn out to be embarrassingly inaccurate.
According to Gelvin, five elements were responsible for popular uprisings, which had the dual goals of demanding rights/democracy and pressing for better economic conditions, in the Arab world. Bear in mind, though, that none of these elements was a key cause and, even with all of them in place, the uprisings weren’t inevitable. Overall, the uprisings, with the possible exception of Tunisia’s, were less than successful in bringing about major structural changes. Nowhere was this failure more pronounced than in Syria, owing to it having no Tahrir-Square-like epicenter and the army not standing down [p. 83].
1. Neo-liberalism: Having taken roots in the Arab world in the 1970s, neo-liberalism and its attendant economic reforms allowed Arab countries to get connected to and benefit from international markets and sources of credit.
2. Human rights revolution: Developing in tandem with neo-liberalism since the 1970s, the human rights and democratic rights movements were used by both liberal and regressive opponents of the region’s regimes to weaken them.
3. Brittleness of Arab regimes: The region’s regimes were caught between recommended austerity measures on the one hand and increased demand for government services on the other. Around the same time, governments in Western countries began to fall due to popular anger. The Arab world lacked such a safety valve, as people could not oust governments (politicians), so they focused on overthrowing the regime (“nizam”).
4. Demography: An increase in the number of young people under 30 and the attendant rise in unemployment and under-employment, led to economic hardships across the region.
5. Global rise in food prices: Widespread droughts around the world and changes in agricultural priorities and patterns intensified the economic hardships that had arisen from demography and rampant unemployment.
These factors affected each of the region’s countries in a different way. Monarchies, by and large, escaped serious consequences, in part due to using their oil wealth to buy out their opponents. However, the survival of Morocco’s monarchy is a puzzle, given that the country lacks oil.
Talking about the Middle East as a whole is challenging, because the countries in the region are not homogeneous. Arab women have the least political participation in the world, yet Israeli, Turkish, and, to some extent, Iranian women are relatively active.
I will list some of the key features of the New Middle East in the next few paragraphs.
Refugee crises [pp. 76-77]: The Syrian civil war has intensified sectarian conflicts in all countries of the region. Syrian refugees have doubled Lebanon’s unemployment rate to 20% and have caused major economic hardships in Turkey and Jordan. Many Iraqi refugees who had settled in Syria were forced to seek refuge back in Iraq, hardly a safer place.
US-Israel relations [p. 120]: The US has become wary of extending unconditional support to Israel. “Obama’s administration was not the first to have abstained or supported UN resolutions critical of Israel ... George W. Bush’s allowed 6 such resolutions to pass, George H. W. Bush’s allowed 9, and Ronald Reagan’s allowed 21.”
Human security [p. 137]: The term “security” often means the security of states and governments. The term “human security” has been coined to shift the focus to those factors that make populations unsafe. The Middle East today is the second most urbanized region in the world (after Latin America). Megapolises with very limited human services form a major cause of human insecurity.
Water shortage and climate-change vulnerabilities [pp. 141-144]: Three Arab countries (Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait) are already below water poverty line, defined as being able to use 50 liters of water daily for drinking and personal hygiene. There is no general agreement on whether the recent temperature spikes in the region are aberrations or omens of a new normal.
Poverty and health problems [p. 157]: Whereas income poverty prevails in the region, despite its vast natural resources, human poverty, which includes also quality of life and the sense of well-being, is even worse. The Middle East is the second most obese region in the world, after the South Pacific.
Let me end my review by quoting the book’s final paragraph [p. 167]: “The breadth and depth of the protests and uprisings that have engulfed the Arab world, Iran, Turkey, and Israel indicate that agitation for good governance is not a transient or localized phenomenon in the Middle East. As such, the history of the past thirty years cannot but disturb the sleep of politicians, kings, and dictators throughout the region.”
Written by historian and author of a related volume, The Arab Uprising: What Everyone Needs to Know, this book could have been titled “The Contemporary History of the Middle East.” Here, “The Middle East” is defined as spanning from Morocco on the west to Iran on the east, a region more dependent on oil revenues that any other part of the world and comprising about half a billion people. The term “The New Middle East” was coined by US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and later elaborated upon in the journal Foreign Affairs by policy analyst Richard N. Haass [p. 21], when the old, relatively-peaceful ME (from the US viewpoint) came crashing down with the invasion of Iraq.
Gelvin begins by discussing the region’s past, 1945-2011, which he entitles “Before the Deluge” (ch. 1, pp. 1-23) and an overview of the Arab Uprisings (ch. 2, pp. 24-49). He then discusses the Syria embroglio (ch. 3, pp. 50-81), the rise and decline of ISIS (ch. 4, pp. 82-111), patrons, proxies, and freelancers (ch. 5, pp. 112-136), and human security in the New Middle East (ch. 6, pp. 137-167). There is no separate concluding section to wrap up the discussions and to point to what might be expected in the future, perhaps because any predictions for such a volatile region may turn out to be embarrassingly inaccurate.
According to Gelvin, five elements were responsible for popular uprisings, which had the dual goals of demanding rights/democracy and pressing for better economic conditions, in the Arab world. Bear in mind, though, that none of these elements was a key cause and, even with all of them in place, the uprisings weren’t inevitable. Overall, the uprisings, with the possible exception of Tunisia’s, were less than successful in bringing about major structural changes. Nowhere was this failure more pronounced than in Syria, owing to it having no Tahrir-Square-like epicenter and the army not standing down [p. 83].
1. Neo-liberalism: Having taken roots in the Arab world in the 1970s, neo-liberalism and its attendant economic reforms allowed Arab countries to get connected to and benefit from international markets and sources of credit.
2. Human rights revolution: Developing in tandem with neo-liberalism since the 1970s, the human rights and democratic rights movements were used by both liberal and regressive opponents of the region’s regimes to weaken them.
3. Brittleness of Arab regimes: The region’s regimes were caught between recommended austerity measures on the one hand and increased demand for government services on the other. Around the same time, governments in Western countries began to fall due to popular anger. The Arab world lacked such a safety valve, as people could not oust governments (politicians), so they focused on overthrowing the regime (“nizam”).
4. Demography: An increase in the number of young people under 30 and the attendant rise in unemployment and under-employment, led to economic hardships across the region.
5. Global rise in food prices: Widespread droughts around the world and changes in agricultural priorities and patterns intensified the economic hardships that had arisen from demography and rampant unemployment.
These factors affected each of the region’s countries in a different way. Monarchies, by and large, escaped serious consequences, in part due to using their oil wealth to buy out their opponents. However, the survival of Morocco’s monarchy is a puzzle, given that the country lacks oil.
Talking about the Middle East as a whole is challenging, because the countries in the region are not homogeneous. Arab women have the least political participation in the world, yet Israeli, Turkish, and, to some extent, Iranian women are relatively active.
I will list some of the key features of the New Middle East in the next few paragraphs.
Refugee crises [pp. 76-77]: The Syrian civil war has intensified sectarian conflicts in all countries of the region. Syrian refugees have doubled Lebanon’s unemployment rate to 20% and have caused major economic hardships in Turkey and Jordan. Many Iraqi refugees who had settled in Syria were forced to seek refuge back in Iraq, hardly a safer place.
US-Israel relations [p. 120]: The US has become wary of extending unconditional support to Israel. “Obama’s administration was not the first to have abstained or supported UN resolutions critical of Israel ... George W. Bush’s allowed 6 such resolutions to pass, George H. W. Bush’s allowed 9, and Ronald Reagan’s allowed 21.”
Human security [p. 137]: The term “security” often means the security of states and governments. The term “human security” has been coined to shift the focus to those factors that make populations unsafe. The Middle East today is the second most urbanized region in the world (after Latin America). Megapolises with very limited human services form a major cause of human insecurity.
Water shortage and climate-change vulnerabilities [pp. 141-144]: Three Arab countries (Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait) are already below water poverty line, defined as being able to use 50 liters of water daily for drinking and personal hygiene. There is no general agreement on whether the recent temperature spikes in the region are aberrations or omens of a new normal.
Poverty and health problems [p. 157]: Whereas income poverty prevails in the region, despite its vast natural resources, human poverty, which includes also quality of life and the sense of well-being, is even worse. The Middle East is the second most obese region in the world, after the South Pacific.
Let me end my review by quoting the book’s final paragraph [p. 167]: “The breadth and depth of the protests and uprisings that have engulfed the Arab world, Iran, Turkey, and Israel indicate that agitation for good governance is not a transient or localized phenomenon in the Middle East. As such, the history of the past thirty years cannot but disturb the sleep of politicians, kings, and dictators throughout the region.”
February 17, 2020
I highly recommend What Everyone Needs to Know as a book series to introduce yourself to a topic. I was nine years old on September 11th so The Middle East has been in the media for the majority of my life. Despite this being the case, I had never decided to read up on the Middle East until the January airstrike that killed Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani.
This book is an excellent introduction to the fundamentals of the region’s history, including the creation of state-based counties after WW2 as well as the demographic and political makeup of counties as Sunni or Shi’i. Second, there are great overviews on recent events like the Arab Spring, Syrian Civil War, and Rise and decline of ISIS.
I look forward to learning more about the region including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the root causes of terrorism, and history of western colonization and exploitation of these brown countries.
This book is an excellent introduction to the fundamentals of the region’s history, including the creation of state-based counties after WW2 as well as the demographic and political makeup of counties as Sunni or Shi’i. Second, there are great overviews on recent events like the Arab Spring, Syrian Civil War, and Rise and decline of ISIS.
I look forward to learning more about the region including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the root causes of terrorism, and history of western colonization and exploitation of these brown countries.
December 9, 2024
This book left me somewhat disappointed. I expected a clear, focused analysis of the current political and social dynamics in each Middle Eastern state, alongside an exploration of government structures and overarching regional trends.
Instead, the book offers a blend of historical context and discussions on ethnic, social and economic realities, which, while important, felt tangential to my expectations. The lack of a cohesive framework for understanding the present-day Middle East made it difficult to extract actionable insights or develop a more nuanced understanding of the region’s complexities.
Moreover, I found the book rather monotonous and lacking in fresh perspectives. Much of the content reiterated information I was already familiar with, which diminished its value as a resource for those with some prior knowledge of the region.
Instead, the book offers a blend of historical context and discussions on ethnic, social and economic realities, which, while important, felt tangential to my expectations. The lack of a cohesive framework for understanding the present-day Middle East made it difficult to extract actionable insights or develop a more nuanced understanding of the region’s complexities.
Moreover, I found the book rather monotonous and lacking in fresh perspectives. Much of the content reiterated information I was already familiar with, which diminished its value as a resource for those with some prior knowledge of the region.
March 21, 2020
This was an EXCELLENT read - very concise, objective and informative. Although because it prioritizes succinctness, it often doesn’t get into the deeper roots of some of the topics it’s discussing. If you already have a good handle on the late-19th and early- to mid-20th century history of the region, this won’t be a problem at all. But if you want to go a bit deeper, I’d recommend looking into a book that covers those periods, for context.
November 14, 2023
Very readable and authoritative analysis of the political, economic and especially humanitarian mess that is the present Middle East. Written in 2018 so it is relatively current. With the recent war between Israel and Hamas and its abettors the status quo of turmoil and violence seems like a perpetual fate for this region and its peoples. Very sobering.
January 25, 2018
All encompassing review of the Middle East up to today. Hits all important aspects that currently threaten and will potentially threaten the New Middle East. Great for anyone starting an interest in the Middle East or for those that have been out of the loop for years.
March 15, 2019
Mostly a well written and easy to follow introduction to the background to recent events in the Middle East and those events themselves. The final section maybe overly optimistic about the future,but the rest is a solid analysis.
January 19, 2026
Read this as a reference book on the Middle East and its international role, especially around and after the Arab Spring of 2011. Each chapter is set of questions. That makes it easy to consult, but it doesn’t make for a gripping reading. Some of the answer are long-winded.
August 22, 2019
A perfect introduction to contemporary middle eastern politics.
April 5, 2021
Helped me to understand the proxy war in Syria.
June 28, 2023
Good book to get introduced to the topics its discusses before moving on to more in-depth literature.
February 9, 2021
Great little book that summarizes the history of the middle east. Where they started vis a vis islam/other regional religions and politics and social issues. To the Arab uprisings 10 years ago. What progress they didn't make. How the uprisings mostly failed. Analyzes the US presence fairly and clearly and suggests blame. Highly recommend.
December 25, 2020
I read this book as a prescribed text in my university history course on the Middle East. It did it’s job, and it’s contents are so valuable to conquer ignorance internationally that it will stay on my personal bookshelf long after the course is completed. Gelvin writes nothing revolutionary, and I am not even certain if I like him as an author. But this book lays bare the modern situation of the Middle East. It surprisingly criticises the USA well even though the author is American, it doesn’t seem to show a particular bias to some middle eastern countries over others and there are few topics that he does not discuss. The question and answer format suited the topic, as it allowed the reader to have many of their own doubts and questions answered, and done so in an academic and measured way rather than a by a blog online. The tone that the author uses to discuss the Middle East, it’s politics and it’s history, has been sorely missing from discussions in the west about the region. For this reason, this would be high in my list of books that I think all people would benefit from reading.
January 29, 2018
Professor Galvin manages to explain the current situation of the region succinctly and very clearly. The Q and A format (short Qs and comprehensive As) makes sure that the reader can understand the issues adequately. The background (the Ottoman Succession, Decolonization, the Cold War, Pax Americana) is canvassed perspicuously. Three separate chapters are then devoted to recent or current major uprisings and conflicts. A final chapter discusses the issues of governance and economics that undergird the predicaments of the region. Timely and informative. Five stars.
September 16, 2020
An excellent, easily accessible overview of modern Middle East politics and history.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews