Politics And Digital Literature in The Middle East Perspectives on Online Text And Context

During the 45 years of the Cold War, policymakers from the US and the Soviet Union vied for primacy in the Middle East. Their motives, long held by historians to have had an ideological thrust, were, in fact, to gain control over access to oil and claim geographic and strategic advantage. In his new audiobook, Rashid Khalidi, considered the foremost US historian of the Middle East, makes the compelling case that the dynamics that played out during the Cold War continue to exert a profound influence even decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Renewing the social contract—one of the pillars of the new World Bank Group strategy for the Middle East and North Africa—requires a new development model built on greater trust; openness, transparency, and inclusive and accountable service delivery; and a stronger private sector that can create jobs and opportunities for the youth of the region. Recent analytic work aimed at explaining weak job creation and insufficient private sector dynamism in the region point to formal and informal barriers to entry and competition.

Relations between the United States and the Middle East are going through a period of significant change in which the use of force in pursuit of national interests has proved to be increasingly counter-productive.