© Columbia University Press
Transnational Shia Politics: Religious and Political Networks in the Gulf
August, 2008
Cloth, 256 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-70040-5
$34.50
"Laurence Louër looks at the increasing visibility of Shiism beyond the stereotyped narratives of sectarian conflict, minority identity, and Iranian policy that are generally invoked to describe the character of Arab Shiism. She gives us a fascinating account of the related yet different historical processes that define Shiite politics and identity in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. From the economic and educational opportunities that ARAMCO offered its Shiite workers in Saudi Arabia to the nativist politics of Bahrain's majority; and from the merchant-led mobilization of Kuwaiti Shiism to the clerical origins of sectarian politics in Iraq, we are offered an incredibly detailed and refreshingly original narrative of Shiite activism in the region." — Faisal Devji, New School University, author of The Terrorist in Search of Humanity: Militant Islam and Global Politics