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Radical Arab Nationalism and Political Islam, by Lahouari Addi. Translated by Anthony Roberts. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2017. 288 pages. $34.95.
Reviewed by Tristan J. Mabry
Nationalism and Islamism in the Arab world, Lahouari Addi tells us, are both "twins and rivals," though it is Islamism that has presented itself as both the "heir and adversary" of nationalism (p. 1). Given the amount of energy and ink devoted to each concept over the past few decades, teasing out the origins and complete evolution of the Arab "twins" in a single volume is no mean feat. Addi, however, is well qualified to undertake the challenge, serving as a professor at France's Lyon Institute of Political Studies as well as a research fellow at the National Centre of Research in Social and Cultural Anthropology in Oran, Algeria. His Radical Arab Nationalism and Political Islam is an elegant and singularly useful book, addressing ideas and events of relevance to students of nationalism, religion, Islam, the Arab world, and the Middle East more broadly.
This is expressly a work of political sociology, though at times it reads more as an intellectual history of nationalism and Islamism in the Arab world, continuously citing thinker after thinker for their influence on the respective ideology under consideration. The book is divided into two parts, the first on the origins of Arab nationalism and the second on the politics and ideology of Islamism.
For Addi, radical Arab nationalism emerged as "a quasi-religious ideal riding a wave of popular fervor" (p. 40) in several Arab countries - including Algeria, Syria, and Iraq,...