Kingdom of Bahrain - 2nd Edition by Ahmed Khuzaie (Paperback)

About the Book

A book that provides a comprehensive, factual retelling of the historical and current aspects of the political scene in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Includes not before published Data, graphs, charts and analysis.

Book Synopsis

This book gives an overview of the political situation and its ramifications in Bahrain. Unlike what most presumed, political unrest didn't start in 2011 and it was not occasioned by the regional conflicts but has been in the making for a long time.

This book provides a comprehensive, factual retelling of Bahrain's political scene, both past and present. Provides a thorough analysis of political societies, their ideologies, their manifestos, and their affiliations. The book also presents a broader study of Bahraini politics and a summary of all the elements involved in Bahrain's political structure. This includes the government, its structure, constitution, and related bodies. In this review, we explore the kingdom's political history, and all factors that influenced its political structure, and how both successes and shortcomings have influenced its current situation.

Review Quotes

The work in hand of the authors Khuzaie, Zenaty, Isono, Kukharev and Sullivan deals with the political history and situation in Bahrain with deep insights into the thinking of the various groups of the Bahraini society. But why should someone be interested in the political affairs of such a tiny country, hardly to see on any map of the world? If the reader understands how to read the book it gives access to the whole Arab world as a starting point for a discussion of values between Europe and the Arab World and of Arab communities and people within Europe. The promise of the executive summary on page 1 is kept, the book really made a thorough analysis of all political societies and their ideologies, manifestos, affiliations, stories and deals with all factors involved in the political structure and how successes and drawbacks have shaped todays' political outcomes. Hardly any aspect remains un-regarded. The book surprises with an accurate working up of whatever might be relevant, whether the history of the flag or the geographical division into governorates or the names of each and every person who ever gained seats in any council or parliament in recent history. Impressive: whoever reads the book cannot keep everything in mind, the book serves as a reference work, usable in the broad Arab and partly as well Iranian context.

The focus of the book lays certainly on the topic "politics", but it is much more. The authors look at facts behind politics in a noncommitted way and draw a picture of politics as a consequence of affiliations and influences from inside the Bahraini society as well as from external sources. The description of all political groups, officially registered or not, who have been active in Bahrain in the last decades show that Bahrain is a part of the Arab world and embedded in the struggles of the whole region including the Persian world.

Political affiliations of political societies are named from Iran, Egypt, Syria, Arab Nationalism, Iraq, even CCCP, which doesn't exist anymore and much more. Reading the book looking at splinter groups, coalitions, movements and political parties and the king and the royal family the reader understands who is thinking what and where this thinking comes from and that the Arab world must be seen much more as an integrated political space which I would compare to the scattered regionalism of Germany two centuries ago. Bahrain having no clear majorities within its constitutive people is contending political ideas, often related to religious issues, in place of tendencies within the whole Middle East and Northern African region. - Dr. Volker Ludwig

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Informative overview of political history of Bahrain. Fills gap in literature on these kind of subjects.- Dr. Peter Muijrers