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The Veil: Modesty, Privacy, Resistance, by Fadwa El Guindi. Oxford: Berg 1999. xx + 185 pages. Notes to p. 213. Bibl. To p. 234. Index to p. 242. $60 cloth; $19.50 paper.
Not since Elizabeth and Robert Fernea published their classic 1979 article "A Look Behind the Veil" has anyone attempted what El Guindi provides here: a sympathetic and comprehensive introduction to the cultural meanings of the veil in the Middle East and Muslim world, informed by an anthropological perspective.1 The book goes beyond their article in its engagement with intellectual trends only just emerging at the time the Ferneas wrote their piece: the critique of Orientalism, colonial and postcolonial studies, and the dramatic growth of Women's Studies. One of the kinds of veiling El Guindi analyzes was also just emerging as a widespread phenomenon at the time the Ferneas published, and she deals with it better than anyone. The audience addressed in this book is perhaps more complicated than theirs was. The dedication announces El Guindi's desire to reach "those who decided to veil, those who refused to unveil, those who refused to veil, those who traditionally always veiled, and those who never ever veiled." This suggests The Veil is a book for women, from both the Middle East and from the West. Given that one of the arguments El Guindi...