Nation and Religion in the Middle East Book

For 1997, before anyone gave a damn about the Middle East apart from Israel-Palestine ranters and specialists, this was a great introduction to the region for an American audience.

Looking at it now among the shelf-buckling piles of books on the Muslim world, post 9/11 fluff, and academic prancing... it's still a pretty good book, as an intro. Great impressions of "Islamism" across a number of countries and general overview of the region(s) from a Cairo bureau chief.

You can hate on Judith Miller all you want for things that have happened since the book was published, and you can knock the book for being a bit thin on substance -- but she was on-the-ground in the region way before it was considered "relevant", and way before 90% of the academic and journalistic world had a clue, and before middle east studies became so popular.

Most importantly, she was writing this book for an American audience that didn't know the difference between Shia and Sunni, much less the different types of Shia belief systems, which the book does a good job of explaining.

It was a good intro book for the time, a bit ahead of its time, and a lot better than a lot of what has been published since.