Two Mideast Nations
KOHN, HANS
Two Mideast Nations Egypt. By Tom Littlie. Praeger. 334 pp. $6.50. Iraq. By S. Longrigg & F. Stoakes. Praeger. 340 pp. $6.50. Reviewed by Hans Kohn Prof. of History, CCNY It is rare,...
...Nuri as-Said of Iraq represented and dominated the older Arab generation, Nasser the younger one...
...the Kurdish minority and Communist influence...
...Antony's College at Oxford, supply an authoritative and up-to-date study of the emergence of Iraq by way of a British Mandate into independent statehood...
...the author wrote in mid-1958...
...Africa and Europe...
...The geographic situation of the two countries is different too...
...With the skilled pen of the trained journalist Little sketches portraits of the various leading Egyptian figures and he combines a typical British sense of understatement and irony with an acute grasp of psychological and sociological factors...
...The events of July 14...
...Little views events and personalities within the framework of motivating social and intellectual forces and thus guides the reader below the surface...
...Tom Little, a British journalist who lived in Egypt for many years until he was expelled during the Anglo-French invasion of 1956, gives one of the most important assessments of modern Egypt published to date...
...Iraq's best defense against Communism at the present time...
...He not only examines the political history of the crucial past two decades but also provides a brief introduction to earlier Egyptian history and shows how far this past is vital to an understanding of Gamal Abdel Nasser and his movement...
...They provide an understanding of the forces at work and of the great waves of social and cultural transformation that have been sweeping not only Egypt and Iraq but many of the former colonial areas in Asia and Africa since the end of World War II...
...Iraq, with its very large Kurdish and Shiite minorities, also has a much less homogeneous population...
...These two volumes by British experts on the two crucial countries in the Middle East are models of scholarship and critical judgment...
...Both were dedicated Arab nationalists, but Nuri was out of touch with the nationalism of the younger generation...
...But in both countries the same forces are at work and no other studies inform more objectively about them than these titles in the "Nations of the Modern World" series...
...In the conflict of their personalities was clearly symbolized the clash of the generations and their ideologies...
...may well be a nationalist and reformist government which commands the confidence of the people and feels no necessity to seek Soviet protection...
...Though his straight historical narrative does not include any special sections on social problems...
...Two Englishmen, Brigadier Stephen Longrigg who lived in Iraq for nearly 30 years, first as a Political Officer and then with the Iraq Petroleum Company, and Frank Stoakes...
...But Mesopotamia does not show Egypt's continuous development and personality...
...They are indispensable for any student of the area...
...Egypt offers a key for an understanding of the new relationship among the three continents which is slowly and very painfully emerging todav...
...Both books show how far the national movement in the Middle East, as in Africa and Asia in general, has travelled on the road of popular support and social awakening...
...Thev write less brilliantly than Little, but they present, in addition to political history, a broad survey of all aspects of the economy of the country, of its governmental machinery and of its social pattern...
...1958 are dealt with only in a brief epilogue but the book supplies all the information necessary for an understanding of why the coup did come and why it succeeded so easily...
...With Brigadier Abdul Karim el-Kassem the new generation has come to power in Iraq too...
...Egypt links the Middle East and Africa: Iraq connects the Middle East with Iran and Turkey...
...Mesopotamia, in ancient times, was Egypt's competitor for the control of the Middle East...
...Director of Middle Eastern Studies at St...
...The authors devote special attention to two problems crucial for Iraq...
...Nor does present-day Iraq possess the same degree of national cohesion...
...of History, CCNY It is rare, nowadays, to come upon books on the Middle East which impress by their objectivity and fairness...
...Iraq is culturally backward compared with Egypt which has had a much closer contact with the West for over 150 years...
...Situated on the crossroads of Asia...
Vol. 42 • March 1959 • No. 10
