The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life

Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2012. H4 - A first edition (no additional printings) hardcover book SIGNED and dated by Roger Owen with "Harvard" written on the front free endpaper in very good condition in very good dust jacket that is mylar protected. Dust jacket and book have some bumped corners, light discoloration and shelf wear. The monarchical presidential regimes that prevailed in the Arab world for so long looked as though they would last indefinitely until events in Tunisia and Egypt made clear their time was up. The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life exposes for the first time the origins and dynamics of a governmental system that largely defined the Arab Middle East in the twentieth century. Presidents who rule for life have been a feature of the Arab world since independence. In the 1980s their regimes increasingly resembled monarchies as presidents took up residence in palaces and made every effort to ensure their sons would succeed them. Roger Owen explores the main features of the prototypical Arab monarchical regime: its household; its inner circle of corrupt cronies; and its attempts to create a popular legitimacy based on economic success, a manipulated constitution, managed elections, and information suppression. Why has the Arab world suffered such a concentration of permanent presidential government? Though post-Soviet Central Asia has also known monarchical presidencies, Owen argues that a significant reason is the "Arab demonstration effect," whereby close ties across the Arab world have enabled ruling families to share management strategies and assistance. But this effect also explains why these presidencies all came under the same pressure to reform or go. Owen discusses the huge popular opposition the presidential systems engendered during the Arab Spring, and the political change that ensued, while also delineating the challenges the Arab revolutions face across the Middle East and North Africa. 9.25"x6.5", 194 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Roger Owen (Edward Roger John Owen) was a British historian who wrote several classic works on the history of the modern Middle East. His research interests included the economic, social and political history of the Middle East, especially Egypt, from 1800 to the present, as well as the theories of imperialism, including military occupations. He read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1956 to 1959, followed by a D Phil in Economic History at St. Antony's College, from 1960 to 1964. One of his close advisers was the renowned Middle East historian Albert Hourani. His thesis which was on the cotton production and the development of the economy in nineteenth-century Egypt was later published into a book. When in the 1960s new postgraduate course in modern Middle Eastern studies were introduced at St Antony's College and a raft of new posts created with British government funding, Owen was appointed in Economic and Social History in 1964. He served as Director of St. Antony's College Middle East Centre, from 1971-4, 1980-2, 1986-8, and 1991-3. Subsequently he became the A.J. Meyer Professor of Middle East History at Harvard University and was the director of Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES). In addition to his teaching and scholarship, Owen frequently wrote columns for the English-language versions of the Arabic newspapers Al-Hayat and Al-Ahram. He was a member of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, also known as MESA. In 2007 he received a Doctorate in Humane Letters from the American University of Cairo. In July 2010, he received the prestigious "Award for Outstanding Contributions to Middle Eastern Studies 2010" from the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES) in Barcelona. In 2012, he received the Giorgio Levi Della Vida medal for Excellence in Islamic studies, Von Grunebaum Center UCLA. He died on 23 December 2018.. Signed by Author. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.