Arab nationalism

2016
The War on Error: Israel, Islam, and the Middle East
Kramer, Martin. The War on Error: Israel, Islam, and the Middle East. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers, 2016. Buy at AmazonAbstract

In The War on Error, historian and political analyst Martin Kramer presents a series of case studies, some based on pathfinding research and others on provocative analysis, that correct misinformation clouding the public’s understanding of the Middle East. He also offers a forensic exploration of how misinformation arises and becomes “fact.”

The book is divided into five themes: Orientalism and Middle Eastern studies, a prime casualty of the culture wars; Islamism, massively misrepresented by apologists; Arab politics, a generator of disappointing surprises; Israeli history, manipulated by reckless revisionists; and American Jews and Israel, the subject of irrational fantasies. Kramer shows how error permeates the debate over each of these themes, creating distorted images that cause policy failures.

Kramer approaches questions in the spirit of a relentless fact-checker. Did Israeli troops massacre Palestinian Arabs in Lydda in July 1948? Was the bestseller Exodus hatched by an advertising executive? Did Martin Luther King, Jr., describe anti-Zionism as antisemitism? Did a major post-9/11 documentary film deliberately distort the history of Islam? Did Israel push the United States into the Iraq War? Kramer also questions paradigms—the “Arab Spring,” the map of the Middle East, and linkage. Along the way, he amasses new evidence, exposes carelessness, and provides definitive answers.

1996
Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival: The Politics of Ideas in the Middle East
Kramer, Martin. Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival: The Politics of Ideas in the Middle East. New Brunswick, N.J. Transaction Publishers, 1996.Abstract

Over the past decade, the political ground beneath the Middle East has shifted. Arab nationalism the political orthodoxy for most of this century has lost its grip on the imagination and allegiance of a new generation. At the same time, Islam as an ideology has spread across the region, and "Islamists" bid to capture the center of politics. Most Western scholars and experts once hailed the redemptive power of Arabism. Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival is a critical assessment of the contradictions of Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism, and the misrepresentation of both in the West.

Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival (pdf)

Paperback edition, 2008.

1993
Kramer, Martin. “Arab Nationalism: Mistaken Identity.” Daedalus 122, no. 3 (1993): 171-206. Publisher's Version Arab Nationalism: Mistaken Identity (pdf)
1989
Kramer, Martin. “Arabistik and Arabism: The Passions of Martin Hartmann.” Middle Eastern Studies 25, no. 3 (1989): 283-300. JSTORAbstract

A study of the role of the German Orientalist Martin Hartmann in advocating for the cause of Arab nationalism before the First World War, based in part on his private papers.

Arabistik and Arabism: The Passions of Martin Hartmann (pdf)
1982
Kramer, Martin. “Arabs Against Themselves (book review).” Commentary 74, no. 1 (1982): 86-88.Abstract

Martin Kramer reviews Fouad Ajami's book The Arab Predicament. 

Arabs Against Themselves (pdf)