Lahouari Addi's latest work offers a detailed and convincing analysis of trends within Arab nationalism starting with the rise of Saudi Wahhabism and Egypt's al-Nahda movement led by Rifa'a al-Tahtawi in the 19th century. Addi's work effectively shows why the promises of reform and modernization from many 20th century Arab leaders under the banner of their own idiosyncratic iterations of nationalism, in the end, resulted in recalcitrant authoritarian regimes. Despite Addi's strong historical analysis, his work falls short in its overarching analysis of the relationship between political Islam and Arab politics which can partially be attributed to the fact that it is not grounded in a strong understanding of Islamic theology.

Addi demonstrates an impressive deftness navigating both Arab history and Western socio-political thought when making points related to the convergence of Arab nationalism and authoritarianism. He clearly lays out his hypothesis early in the book arguing that “radical Arab nationalism, which gave birth to Republics, viewed modernization as a technical and administrative task on the premise that the state, controlled by military men, was the sole agent for change” (p. 5). For the radical Arab nationalists, only the military and the state had the capacity to bring forth modernization and national glory in a very top-down manner. We can immediately see how such an arrangement inevitably leads to authoritarian movements like Ba'athism and Nasserism.

Addi's deep understanding of political economy is also evident in this work. He analyzed later 20th century Arab economies as being “pre-Ricardian”, embedded in physiocratic modes of rent-seeking behaviors. Addi does a good job articulating how post-colonial Arab societies have done a notoriously shoddy job maximizing their natural resources in ways that foster long-term sustainable economic growth. Instead, often at the behest of strongmen and well-positioned technocrats, corruption and mismanagement were rampant. State control of the economy stifled meaningful innovation and free markets thus resulting in the cronyism and nepotism that characterizes much of the Arab world's administrative and economic structures even today. The 1970s and 80s saw increasing repression and human rights violations in many Arab states as they had to deal with the fall out of increasingly unsustainable and ineffectual rent-seeking economic models.

Addi's engagement with the rise of populism in the Arab world is also clearly laid out even if this analysis is not particularly ground breaking. He discusses how mid-20th century Arab nationalist reformers like Zaki al-Arsuzi and Michel Aflaq lambasted capitalism and imperialism's assault on traditional Arab society. The ba'ath, which in Arabic literally means “renaissance” (or “resurrection” as defined by Addi on page 39), that the Ba'athists sought necessitated the creation of a populist sense of belonging that was rooted in Arab culture and language. The Arabs had the worst of all worlds: they were losing the good parts of their cultural identity while at the same time remaining culturally and economically pre-modern. A heavy-handed state that promoted the Arab identity while at the same time imploring economic development was their solution; a solution that has an obvious authoritarian tint to it from the very start. The failings of secular Arab nationalist politics coincided directly with the rise in demands for Islamism as an alternative.

While Addi gives a compelling history of the rise of Arab nationalism, authoritarianism and populism throughout his work, he nonetheless misrepresents certain views within Islamic law and theology more generally. His disdain for the Hanbali school of Islamic legal thought (madhhab) and perhaps its most iconic later figure, Ibn Taymiyyah, is readily apparent. He regularly invokes both in ways that are misleading and at times inaccurate. For example, he erroneously comments towards the end of the book that Hanbalism “is the majority opinion among the ulemas of Sunni Islam” (p. 239). Even someone with a cursory understanding of Islam ought to know that the Hanbali madhhab is the smallest of the four Sunni madhhabs. In another example of his unabashed disdain for Hanbalism, on page 27 he contends that Hanbalism “forbids all evolution of human thought.” Without getting into technical details about Hanbali fiqh in this review; while Hanbalism is the most conservative Sunni madhhab, the idea that Hanbalism forever relegates all (a very strong word) human thought to a stagnant, fixed point in time is patently absurd. I also take umbrage with his definition of a nation as “a space of civil society that has separated religion from politics, secularized the law […]” (p. 13). Not only would such a definition of nationhood completely exclude many prominent nations in the world today, but it also seems to imply that nationhood is synonymous with the separation of religion and politics. This is especially problematic considering the state of contemporary research on politics and religion that has shown this separation of religion from politics is a questionable assumption to make even in “secular” Western states.

Addi's book offers an excellent history on the rise of Arab nationalism but contains many problematic assumptions regarding the role of Islam and Islamic politics in the Arab world today. I do not believe he demonstrates a serious understanding of Islamic theology in this work, and he clearly views Islam as having a detrimental impact on modernization and development. Islamic political discourse is more than just Qutb, Mawdudi, or Saudi-inspired Wahhabism. It would have been beneficial if the author took more time to critically engage with contemporary alternative visions of Islamic governance that do place a much greater emphasis on an Islamic iteration of democracy, civic participation, and toleration. He does seem to appreciate the efforts of Rachid al-Ghannouchi, but only in the sense that his aims will help speed up the “post-Islamism” process that for Addi will hopefully usher in secular liberal democracy and pluralism. He is adamant that his secular, liberal vision is the correct vision for the Arab world, and his verbose prose at times comes off as preachy. Overall though, this is a solid book that could be readily adopted for an advanced undergraduate or graduate level course on 20th century Arab politics or politics of the Middle East.