Political Journeys
The OpenDemocracy Essays

This collection of columns written for openDemocracy between 2004 and 2009 is proof of a subtle worldview that continues to generate questions: what is the relation between religion, nationalism and progress? Is a new international order possible? When is intervention a force for progress?

Fred Halliday always combined the broad sweep of modern history, its currents and ideas with a profound knowledge of modern revolutions, the Middle East and national movements. This collection of columns written for openDemocracy between 2004 and 2009 is proof of a subtle worldview that continues to generate questions: what is the relation between religion, nationalism and progress? Is a new international order possible? When is intervention a force for progress? From the big headlines topics like the Iraq war or the Danish cartoons, to the unexpected comparisons, of Tibet and Palestine or Afghanistan and the Falklands, Halliday is a perennially surprising and enlightening guide to the major issues of international politics.

Contents
Preface




Chapter One: Points of Departure
Lessons from Ireland


1968: the global legacy


The Lessons of Communism
A lunch with Mario Soares The forward march of women halted? Feminism in the Middle East: two pioneers
Chapter Two: Shadows of Cold War The Age of the Three Dustbins Looking back on Saddam Hussein Cold War Assassinations: Solved and Unsolved A Conversation in Havana Boadicea in the South Atlantic: The Legacies of Margaret Thatcher The Vagaries of 'Anti-imperialism': The Left and jihad The Dominican Republic: in search of a 'National Hero'
Chapter Three: Challenges of the Middle East Crises of the Middle East: 1914, 1967, 2003 America and the Arab World after Saddam Al-Jazeera: a matchbox that roared Yemen: murder in Arabia Felix Navigating Mare Nostrum: The Barcelona Process after ten years In An Unholy Place: Letter from Jerusalem Lebanon, Israel, and the 'Greater West Asian Crisis' Maxime Rodinson: in praise of a 'marginal man'
Chapter Four: Revolution in a 'Great Nation' Ahmadinejad as President: Iran's revolutionary spasm Miscalculation in Tehran
Sunni, Shi'a and the 'Trotskyists of Islam' Iran's revolution in global history Reflections on the Counter-Revolution in Iran
Chapter Five: Political Violence Terrorism in historical perspective In Western Europe's Two Terrorism Capitals
A Visit to 'Ground Zero' A Lebanese fragment: two days with Hizbullah Reason amid Rockets: Morality in a time of War The Attorney-General comes to town On the Death of Benazir Bhutto
Chapter Six: Profit and Power in the Lands of Islam A transnational umma: reality or myth? The Jamahiriyah at Forty Faith as Business: Islam, law and finance Finance in the Gulf: the Chimera of Sovereign Wealth Funds
Chapter Seven: Universalism Imperilled A Crisis of Universalism: America and radical Islam after 9/11 In Euskadi Tibet, Palestine and the Politics of Post-colonial Sequestration The Miscalculations of Small Nations Mixed Messages in Yerevan In the Darkest Place: a morning in Auschwitz
Conclusions: The World's Twelve Worst Ideas Revenge of Political Economy: Karl Polanyi, Susan Strange and the global financial crisis A Time in Barcelona
Further References
Index