It seems that something will not change. Innocently, we tend to assume that history, by definition, past and completed, is bought to become a constant. However, history is of course only understood when it is explained, and understanding and interpretation are always carried out by contemporary interests. It is very difficult to write a history of your own time, perhaps impossible, because all the conclusions are still waiting. Sometimes this is why we mark such activities as "guessing." However, it is necessary to review how the current problem is seen, even if the event has changed.
This experience awaits the opening of Thomas Kiernan's 1975 book "Arabs". In his preface, the author promised not to write propaganda, but to present his Arab views. The aim is to seek contemporary positions and priorities by interviewing contacts throughout the Middle East and beyond. But Thomas Kilnan's project was immediately more ambitious than the news, because he crossed these contemporary reflections and assertions with chapters on difficult, historic history. In fact, he goes far beyond the declared limits of his intentions, because he not only covers Arab history, but sometimes inevitably covers the history of Jews. Coupled with the ancient and contemporary Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, Israel's history, the important passage of politics and conflict, which led to the change of the region's strategy, and just for riding, it is an excellent road in Islamic history, it became Make it clear that this is an ambitious but potentially informative project. Forty years, the weakness of this book - it does have one - lies in the contemporary news section, which was the most direct and perhaps more interesting content at the time. Today, readers of the Arabs of Thomas Kilnan will thank the authors for their clear and comprehensive history and cultural chapters that clearly identify and define these issues, not just descriptions or guesses of contemporary contexts.
The book began in Lebanon and was cooked and bombed. As a journalist, Thomas Kiernan is able to provide an account that brings death to life and reminds us how much we may change, although the location may be different and the technical efficiency of the process may increase. Today, the risk of murder seems to be small.
But since 2014, the ideas put forward by Thomas Kirnan's Arabs seem to have been devalued by two contemporary assumptions that now seem to have a distorted perspective between our current experience and the ideas provided in the book. In 1975, the impact of the first punitive rise in oil prices was felt. OPEC's muscles were only recently developed, and there was almost no bending at the time. In addition, there is a need to explain everything through the filters provided by the Cold War, and it can be understood why most of the current analysis seems to be less relevant to today's Middle East issues.
A major problem at the time was that the large increase in wealth in the Arab countries would lead to effective acquisitions or takeovers of Western interests, whether commercial or strategic. It seems that this does not seem to be a problem, because the capitalism of the 21st century has left most of us in a position to know the temporary ownership of the enterprise or even not important. Moreover, if a terrible buyout is possible, it has happened so far, and the results seem to have proved less catastrophic than the imagination of forty years ago.
However, when the author is addicted to speculation about the future, the true relevance of the real boasting of the book is at the end. If the conflicts in the superpowers are reasonable, who cares about asset ownership, as described in the postscript of the Arabs? In 1975, Thomas Kiernan believed that such a conflict was inevitable in the Middle East, and that the two super-war powers of the Cold War were participating in wars on territories, influences and resources. This cold war scene is hardly suitable for today's world. The conflict is currently brewing in Israel - Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Libya, not to mention Yemen or Sudan, or even the army to suppress democracy and uprising in Egypt. It seems that the analysis of the conflicts that the region is still involved in sponsored by the external empire seems to be no longer relevant, is it? on the other hand ...
The Arabs of Thomas Kiernan showcases the excellent history, culture and religious history of the Middle East. His speculation about the next forty years now looks quite old and insignificant until the reader edits the label of time and updates the identity of the actor. It looks no big deal.
Orignal From: Historical Constants - Thomas Kilnan's Review of Arabs
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