From the late nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War, socialism in the Arab world emerged as a political and economic aspiration espoused by sectors of the intelligentsia and fought for by radical movements, political parties, trade union structures, and student societies. By the end of the 1960s, it assumed an almost hegemonic influence. Ideologically, it was adopted by Nasserism, the dominant Arab political current of the era; the two largest Arab nationalist political formations: the Ba’ath and the Movement of Arab Nationalists; and, of course, by a range of communist and socialist parties. Economically, socialism was proclaimed as the official system of the five most populous Arab countries: Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Sudan, and Syria, in addition to Libya and South Yemen.1 It was further embraced by liberation movements extending from the Omani province of Dhufar on the shores of the Indian Ocean, through Palestine along the Mediterranean, and all the way to the Western Sahara at the edge of the Atlantic.