Hostage to History

“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”
—James Arthur Baldwin

People, like you, all over the world are asking a serious question, demanding a credible answer: what happened to Arab culture and its peoples? Elie Mikhael Nasrallah addresses this subject as a son of that culture and as a critic from within. “What is wrong, really wrong, with the Arab world” he asks. ”The theme of this book is: it’s the culture, stupid!” Like a social science surgeon, he takes the reader into the dark alleys of contemporary Arab cultural conditions and political collapse. In fact, he shows how the lack of freedom, women’s oppression, sexual repression, illiteracy, political tyranny, outdated educational system, the mixing of religion and politics, and the curse of oil have all led to present-day catastrophic upheaval and Arab state-system disintegration, destruction and decay in most Arab lands. He provides readers with a 12-point prescription for salvaging a civilization that has lost its way and needs to re-join modernity and history.