A Quiet Revolution: The Veil's Resurgence, from the Middle East to America

Though Ahmed's second book is a history of the practice of veiling among Muslim women, it covers "the extraordinary transformations that religions%E2%80%93in this case Islam%E2%80%93undergo as to the way they are lived, practiced, understood and interpreted." Ahmed's history is at once deep (dates, names, and events tumble out it multitude) and specific (the book's first section focuses on the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 20th century), and she justifies what might seem like meandering by claiming that "There is no extricating the story of Muslim women from this larger story: to leave men and the broad political situation out of the picture would leave us with a history...quite unintelligible." What will make this interesting to a wide readership, however, is Ahmed's coverage of recent U.S. history, where anecdotes and personal experience (she lives in Mass.) abound; she makes a convincing case for how the Bush White House claimed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were partially fought to aid oppressed (i.e. veiled) Muslim women. Ahmed explores many aspects of women and Islam, a discourse that is admirably broad, but her effort lacks a clear thesis and Ahmed the writer, not the academic, seems ill equipped to forge a work of either greater meaning or tighter focus. (Apr.)