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The book is a history of the lives of the region's women since the rise of Islam. Nikki Keddie shows why hostile or apologetic responses are completely inadequate to the diversity and richness of the lives of Middle Eastern women, and she provides a overview of their past and rapidly changing present. The book also includes a brief autobiography that recounts Keddie's political activism as one of the first women in Middle East Studies. Positioning women within their individual economic situations, identities, families, and geographies, "Women in the Middle East" examines the experiences of women in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, in Iran, and in all Arab countries. Keddie discusses the interaction of a changing Islam with political, cultural, and socioeconomic developments. She shows that, like other major religions, Islam incorporated ideas and practices of male superiority but also provoked challenges to them. Keddie breaks with notions of Middle Eastern women as faceless victims, and assesses their involvement in the rise of modern nationalist, socialist, and Islamist movements. While acknowledging that conservative trends are strong, she notes that there have been significant improvements in Middle Eastern women's suffrage, education, marital choice, and health. Table of contents: BOOK ONE: Women in the Middle East: A History, Introduction: Issues in Studying Middle Eastern Women's History, I. Regional Background and the Beginnings of Islam, II. From the Pious Caliphs through the Dynastic Caliphates, III. From the Turkish and Mongol Invasions to 1798, IV. Change in the Long Nineteenth Century 1798-1914, V. 1914-45: Nationalism and Women's Movements, VI. 1945-Today: New States and Trends, Women's Activism, and the Rise of Islamism, Conclusion * BOOK TWO: Approaches to the Study of Middle Eastern Women, Part 1. Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender, Part 2. Scholarship, Relativism, and Universalism, Part 3. Women in the Limelight: Recent Books on Middle Eastern Women's History since 1800, Part 4. Problems in the Study of Middle Eastern Women, Part 5. Sexuality and Shii Social Protest in Iran (coauthored with Parvin Paidar [Nahid Yeganeh]) * BOOK THREE: Autobiographical Recollections, Part 1. Autobiographical Interview, Part 2. Supplement to the Interview, Bibliography of Works by Nikki R. Keddie since 1995 * Index |