The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East

While a glut of recent books on the Middle East have addressed Western perspectives on the region, this excellent book emphasizes questions Arabs ask themselves. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iranian revolution serve as backdrops, but veteran Mideast correspondent MacFarquhar (The Sand Café ) focuses primarily on Arab nations and a grab bag of Saudi teachers, Moroccan dissidents broken by their years in prison, individuals searching for political freedom and Muslims struggling to sustain their faith in the face of violence from within and without. MacFarquhar's approach is well-rounded; he includes less palatable facts (“those who argue that the word [jihad] contains no implication of violence are glossing over the fact that for some zealots, jihad means only one thing”) and facts often overlooked (when most Arabs “talk about reform, they usually mean curbing rampant corruption”). If America is to overcome Arabs' deep distrust, MacFarquhar suggests, it must abandon policies “too often based on expediency” and listen, not to its own domestic politics but “to the concerns of the people in [Arabs'] own countries.” (May)