Samir Khalaf's Civil and Uncivil Violence in Lebanon is a study in the sociology and history of communal violence and how political conflicts in Lebanon have deteriorated into protracted and visceral violence. However, on another equally profound level, this is a book that seeks to imagine and narrate a Lebanon that goes beyond the contradictory clichés of its past as either Switzerland of the Middle East, or a failed and inherently dysfunctional nation. On both levels, Khalaf succeeds in crafting a narrative that is engaging, scholarly—and, perhaps most refreshing—hopeful.

Hilal Khashan's book is a sweeping indictment of the myriad Arab failures since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the modern Arab state system. It is a story of overwhelming Arab failures at all levels: political, military, developmental, intellectual, cultural, and social. Common to these failures, however, is a basic foundational dislocation—one that has doomed everything Arab. It is the crisis of identity and legitimacy bedeviling Arab society and politics. This crisis is not without cause, however. It is rooted in the decline of traditional forms of political legitimacy and the concomitant failure to replace them with modern ideas, attitudes, and institutions. Consequently, Khashan contends, “Arabs” suffer from “a severe identity crisis” (p. 1), and the “Arab mind” is utterly confused. Moreover, it is this crisis of identity, and its socio-political ramifications, that explain the failure of the “Arabs” in the aforementioned spheres. In fact, and on Khashan's reading, everything that transpires in the Arab world is either caused by the “Arab mind” or has a direct impact on it, but only to confuse it even more.

There have been three waves of studies on Iran after the Islamic Revolution. The initial series of studies debates the causes of the revolution. A second collection investigates the ideological and theological underpinnings of the Islamic Republic. Most recently, a set of monographs has begun to probe the praxis of the regime and the dynamics of post-revolutionary politics. Mehdi Moslem's Factional Politics in Post-Khomeini Iran is an insightful and thought-provoking contribution to this newer research agenda.

The term “terrorism” is normally applied to activities of small and scattered groups who pursue their goals with fanaticism and press their political and religious agenda by the force of fear and insecurity. There are also states that sponsor terrorism. However, whether a major country such as the United States can be labeled a terrorist country is not often addressed. A few writers on the left have explored that notion. They claim that the United States' militarism abroad is similar to what terrorist groups do. Moreover, most terrorists, from the Islamic fundamentalists of the Middle East to the right-wing assassins of Latin America, are products of U.S. imperial policies. Osama bin Laden was groomed by the CIA, as were Manuel Noriega of Panama and Roberto D'Aubuisson of El Salvador.