Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr
Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr
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Forces of Fortune
The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It Will Mean for Our World

Author: Vali Nasr

Narrator: Arthur Morey

Unabridged: 10 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/29/2009


Synopsis

Renowned Middle East expert Vali Nasr's bestselling book The Shia Revival profoundly transformed the debate about the Iraq War by unveiling how the Sunni-Shia rift was driving the insurgency. Now, in Forces of Fortune, Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.

Nasr's groundbreaking analysis will utterly rewrite the wisdom about how the West can best contend with the threat of Islamic extremism, as well as about the future we can expect of the Muslim world. The great battle for the soul of Iran, the Arab world, Pakistan, and the entire region will be fought not over religion, Nasr reveals, but over business and capitalism.

With a deft combination of historical narrative and eye-opening contemporary on-the-ground reporting from his constant trips to the region, Nasr takes us behind the news, so dominated by the struggle against extremists and the Taliban, to introduce a Muslim world we've not seen—a Muslim world in which the balance of power is being reshaped by an upwardly mobile middle class of entrepreneurs, investors, professionals, and avid consumers, who can tip the scales away from extremist belligerence. His insights into the true situations in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the crucial bright spots of Dubai and Turkey provide a whole new way of thinking about the troubles and prospects in the region.

Drawing on his in-depth knowledge of the Muslim world's tortured history, Nasr offers a powerful reassessment of why extremism and anti-Americanism took hold in the region—not because of an inevitable "clash of cultures" or the nature of Islam, but because of the failure of this kind of authentic middle class to develop in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, largely due to the insidious effects first of colonialism and then of top-down dictatorial regimes, often supported by the West. He then shows that the devoutly Islamic yet highly modern Muslims of what he calls the "critical middle"—in Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, and the stealth force behind the extraordinary growth of aggressively capitalist Dubai—are finally the middle class the region has desperately needed. They are building a whole new economy, as the middle classes did in both India and China, and their distinctive blending of Islam and capitalism is the key to bringing about lasting reform and to defeating fundamentalism. They are people in the region the West can and must do business with.

Forces of Fortune offers a transformative understanding of the Muslim world and its possible future that is sure to spark lively debate and to play a vital role in bringing about a sea change in thinking about the conflict with Islam.

About Vali Nasr

Born in Iran, Vali Nasr is a professor of international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a senior fellow of the Dubai Initiative at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. His book The Shia Revival was a New York Times bestseller. He has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Time, and he has appeared on Anderson Cooper 360, The Situation Room, The Today Show, and Charlie Rose.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ahmed on February 16, 2014

This book is an examination of capitalism’s role in the economic development of Muslim countries, as well as distancing them and their populations from extremist ideologies. Starting from the existence of the modern nation state in the Middle East, it shows that rejection of capitalism, and much ant......more

Goodreads review by Brian on July 17, 2022

I like this book. Nasr pays attention to what businesspeople are thinking and doing -- in Dubai, Turkey, Iran, or elsewhere in the Muslim world. On every side he details the successes of Muslim entrepreneurs and merchants, showing how their efforts are stimulating demand for education, trade relatio......more

Goodreads review by Stan on July 20, 2013

The author Vali Nasr describes the Middle East as a place where struggling and thriving economies are being developed by new classes of business elites who are finding their way in the power structure of many countries and changing the religious, social, and political structure of their societies as......more

Goodreads review by Murtaza on September 15, 2014

Vali Nasr is a great writer in his ability to look past individual events to grasp broader shifts beneath the surface. This book documents the rise of religiously conservative consumer classes in many Muslim-majority countries, and the prospects for engagement with them as a means to both open up an......more

Goodreads review by Chris on April 30, 2010

I'm biased against Islam and Arab world. While I buy into the idea that the average Muslim is a perfectly decent human being (just like the other people of faith that I know and am fond of), the last ten years and a lot of reading have left me convinced that the religion itself is vicious and backwa......more