"Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East"

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews "Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East," a collection of biographies of twenty-four Middle Eastern men and women, edited by Edmund Burket. The author of this paper asserts that the sheer number and variety of these biographies undermines current stereotypes about the Arab mindset and challenges elite-centered accounts of how the Middle East has changed in modern times. The paper explains that the book is organized chronologically, tracing the history of the Middle East through the biographies. The paper provides a synopsis of several of these biographies and looks for commonalities, even among the diversity of stories.

From the Paper:

"Hibgo, an American truck driver, lived his life in Middle East and ended in United States. He started his challenging job of truck driving in iran by developing his own grop of drivers. The challenging nature of the truck driving profession in Iran during this formative period necessitated a truck driver's involvement in a guild. The guild served a variety of crucial needs through a network of shared information and credit based on mutual trust. In the 1930s Hagob became part of a guild consisting of Armenian and Assyrian members, who maintained their ties for decades. He and the others proudly wore their guild's insignia, a jeweler's handcrafted replica of the front portion of a transport vehicle."

More papers on "Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East":

• Book Review # 94208 : "The Modern Middle East"
• Book Review # 94434 : "Modern Middle East"

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