Middle East Future

This book began with the challenge of relating the study of the Middle East to the broader concerns of International Relations. On the one hand, this involved deploying the categories of International Relations theory to explain the Middle East, and seeing how far this particular region can be understood in terms of the concepts of International Relations and historical sociology. The argument was made of any theory that, if it could not help to explain the Middle East, it could not fly. Hopefully enough has been said to show that this challenge can be met, at least in so far as IR has a research agenda represented in the chapters of this book, for analyzing the region. At the same time, the theoretical approach suggests a historical perspective, seeing the contemporary state as a product of modern forces