Bahrain

Host to the U.S. Navy for nearly six decades, Bahrain has been a steadfast American ally in the turbulent Middle East. Its unique relationship with the United States evolved through a series of friendships between Bahrain s ruling Al Khalifa royal family and top U.S. Navy flag officers assigned to the fleet in the Gulf. Over the years it has become a strategic partnership critical to global security.

As naval historian David F. Winkler examines these developing relationships, he offers a fascinating overview of Bahraini history, the entry of American humanitarian and economic interests, the establishment of an American naval presence in the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflicts, and the downfall of the Iranian shah, among other subjects. The author tells the story from both Bahraini and American perspectives.

Given U.S. commitment to the region and its concurrent objectives of combating the global war on terrorism and establishing democracy, this book provides an important historical context for those interested in a crucial facet of American foreign relations. While many works describe the history of U.S. diplomatic and military involvement in the Gulf, this is the first to cover in depth the history of the U.S. Navy in Bahrain.

A three volume study of the Arabic dialects spoken in Bahrain by its older generation, and of the socio-cultural factors which produced them. The material on which the study is based consists of hundreds of hours of transcribed conversations gathered in the mid-1970s. All major social variables are covered in the speaker sample. Volume I lists all the words, with extensive contextual exemplification, which occur in the complete set of texts of which Volume II presents an annotated and translated selection, together with an introduction on the origins of the eastern Arabian vocabulary, and cross references to previous works on the dialects of the area and to the classical lexica. Volume III is a detailed study of the phonology, morphology and syntax of the dialects.

In City of Strangers, Andrew M. Gardner explores the everyday experiences of workers from India who have migrated to the Kingdom of Bahrain. Like all the petroleum-rich states of the Persian Gulf, Bahrain hosts an extraordinarily large population of transmigrant laborers. Guest workers, who make up nearly half of the countrys population, have long labored under a sponsorship system, the kafala, that organizes the flow of migrants from South Asia to the Gulf states and contractually links each laborer to a specific citizen or institution. In order to remain in Bahrain, the worker is almost entirely dependent on his sponsors goodwill. The nature of this relationship, Gardner contends, often leads to exploitation and sometimes violence. Through extensive observation and interviews Gardner focuses on three groups in Bahrain: the unskilled Indian laborers who make up the most substantial portion of the foreign workforce on the island; the countrys entrepreneurial and professional Indian middle class; and Bahraini state and citizenry. He contends that the social segregation and structural violence produced by Bahrains kafala system result from a strategic arrangement by which the state insulates citizens from the global and neoliberal flows that, paradoxically, are central to the nations intended path to the future. City of Strangers contributes significantly to our understanding of politics and society among the states of the Arabian Peninsula and of the migrant labor phenomenon that is an increasingly important aspect of globalization.

The book is a study of political development in Bahrain during the first five years after its independence in 1971. It is based on field research done by the author as the first senior Fulbright scholar in that country. The book was banned in Bahrain for 30 years but was allowed to be published in Arabic in that country in 2006. The study focuses on the tribal structure of Bahraini society and the rule of a minority Sunni government by al-Khalifa family over a largely disenfranchised Shia majority. To examine the making of the new state, the book analyzes the nature and characteristics of the Bahraini tribal society, the educational system of modern Bahrain, the nature of the political system, and popular demands for participation in decision making. The book also examines the making of the new constitution, the first ever national election to both the Constitutional Assembly and the National Assembly, and the electoral campaigns and candidates. The book also discusses the restrictions on freedoms of speech and assembly, the denial of women the right to vote, the banning of political parties and the role of clubs as surrogate political gathering places, the exclusion of the Shia majority from the economic and political centers of power, and the absence of government accountability and transparency. The February 20ll popular uprising in Bahrain underscores some of the key challenges discussed in the book, especially the autocratic nature of the regime and the urgency of political reform for domestic stability.

Rosemarie Said Zahlan tells the story of their formation of the modern Gulf states, their evolution from colonial dependency to statehood, and their fairy-tale transformation by oil. She illuminates their relationship with each other, with the wider Arab world and, crucially, with the major world powers. The result is an informed and balanced picture of the political, economic, religious and cultural character of the area.

Harriet Crawford presents a scholarly and up-to-date account of the archaeology of the Arabian Gulf from c. 4500-1500 BC. She offers a new interpretation of the structure of the urban, centralized and probably literate society of the Early Dilmun period (c. 2000-1800 BC) using material from the recently excavated site of Saar on the main Bahrain island. Like the neighboring societies in Oman and the Emirates, Dilmun was greatly influenced by its participation in the complex trade routes linking it to Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.

This book was first published in 2010. In this path-breaking and multi-layered account of one of the least explored societies in the Middle East, Nelida Fuccaro examines the political and social life of the Gulf city and its coastline, as exemplified by Manama in Bahrain. Written as an ethnography of space, politics and community, it addresses the changing relationship between urban development, politics and society before and after the discovery of oil. By using a variety of local sources and oral histories, Fuccaro questions the role played by the British Empire and oil in state-making. Instead, she draws attention to urban residents, elites and institutions as active participants in state and nation building. She also examines how the city has continued to provide a source of political, social and sectarian identity since the early nineteenth century, challenging the view that the advent of oil and modernity represented a radical break in the urban past of the region.