Barnaby Crowcroft
It’s a Tough Neighbourhood
The Origins of the Arab–Iranian Conflict: Nationalism & Sovereignty in the Gulf between the World Wars
By Chelsi Mueller
Cambridge University Press 298pp £75
Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Rivalry That Unravelled the Middle East
By Kim Ghattas
Wildfire 377pp £20
What do the Arabs want in Iran? The question has long puzzled me. They want to see the back of the Islamic revolutionary regime (most people do), but their relations with its pro-Western, nationalist predecessor were hardly very good either. Several years ago, over dinner in Istanbul with a group of veteran Saudi diplomats, I thought I glimpsed an answer. One began, in a typically oracular manner, talking of a journey he had taken along the southern coast of Iran as a student in the 1960s. He asked the rest of us what language we thought the people there had uniformly spoken (the answer: ‘Arabic’). And he then went on to evoke a historical version of the Persian Gulf that had existed until less than a century before: of a peaceful, undivided, tight-knit Arabian community, the whole coastline ringed by Arab emirates and sheikhdoms.
This period in the region’s history is neglected and perhaps wholly unknown to most Western commentators on the Middle East. Yet it forms a crucial historical frame through which many in the region perceive the conflicts of today. Chelsi Mueller, in The Origins of the Arab–Iranian Conflict, has done a
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm