Book Review: Lockman’s Contending Visions of the Middle East

Citation

Lockman, Zachary  Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition, 2009)

Book Review

Zachary Lockman’s Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism is quite a useful introductory tool to understanding the construction of the Middle East by western scholars. Written for outsiders of the field, Lockman takes his reader on an overview of the assorted arguments within the field of Middle East studies as they came to be and then developed as a result of various factors.

While Lockman’s main goal is to offer an introduction to the broad strokes of the overlapping fields of Orientalism, Oriental studies, Islamic studies, and Middle East Studies as the Western-trained scholars tell it. But underneath the main goal of Lockman’s work lies the almost plea, the hope, of giving not just scholars but the lay-reader, the ability to see why the field arose the way that it did and how it developed, will allow those in the field the ability to understand the impact of their scholarship. This plea is in fact the main argument tying everything together. Essentially, Lockman argues that contemporary thought on the Middle East from those within the West was at least partially created by western scholars of the Middle East. 

In any event at the beginning, Lockman offers an overview of how the West had come to imagine the Middle East beginning with antiquity. This first part of the book is wholly necessary for anyone, like this book reviewer, who has not really studied the Middle East at all. Lockman then transitions to the second part of the book to focus more on how the United States, in particular, imagines the Middle East. Throughout the second half, more emphasis is on the arguments and outside events that influenced this imaging. This half will probably attract the scholar more than the lay reader but it is fundamental to read both halves together in order to understand how the field got to be where it is. 

The strongest thing about this work is the variety of arguments and breadth of ground it covers. While the scholarly arguments are quick they each offer the foundational texts of where a student of the field should start if they wish to know more about The Middle East and X. X could be anything, gender, economics, postructuralism, etc. The breadth of ground also allows for one to see how change over time has impacted and allowed the field to grow and change due to outside events such as the Cold War and renewed United States’ intervention within the region.

While this book is an excellent introductory work for scholars, the lay reader might have more trouble. For one thing, there is quite a good dose of theory, especially in the second half. For another, while Lockman’s writing style is approachable the work is dense. Covering that much ground that quickly while a benefit to the work is also a weakness for the reader. There is so much information it is easy to get bogged down. 

Of course, the strengths and weaknesses of the work boil down to the fact that Lockman is fighting with the tangled and painful history of the United States’ involvement in the Middle East while demonstrating that the field has indeed changed. As a result, Lockman’s work is necessary to read even 15 years after its original publication. The work is both a reminder as the U.S. continues its involvement within the Middle East and a call for action to continue the strands of study Lockman has presented.