Self-Criticism After the Defeat

A response to the Arab defeat in the 1967 war -- scathingly honest. I would skip the essays that introduce it and the reviews after it. The book itself is a brief but a devastating self-examination of the Arab failures. Very much worth a read if you're interested in this part of the world.

It is a crime that al-Azm's works are not more widely translated into English. Highly influential in the Arab world, this text offers a critical Syrian perspective on the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, interpreting it as a wider condemnation of hypocricy amongst the political leaders and a failure to have undertaken substantial progress since decolonization. This is a crucial text for Westerners to read in order to avoid the trap of being stuck between Anti-colonial nationalist and militaristic rhetoric on one side, and conciliatory, pro-American rhetoric on the other.

This book was written when some degree of objectivity was still tolerated. For the ones interested in the subject it is a must.