Alastair Crooke’s new book Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution studies the philosophy of resistance among Islamic movements as articulated by influential Islamist thinkers and revolutionaries of the last century. However, by defining an essence of Islam, Crooke reinforces many of the assumptions he is trying to dispel. Hicham Safieddine reviews for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Book review: Alastair Crooke's "Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution" 

My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness bills itself as “A Poet’s Life in the Palestinian Century.” To better understand Adina Hoffman’s biography of the Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali, however, consider it: “A Palestinian Century in a Poet’s Life.” But this syntactical slip doesn’t discredit Hoffman’s work. By deftly stacking shattered recollections atop dusty stones of history Hoffman has built a literary landmark — not only is My Happiness the first English-language biography of a Palestinian writer, it offers an evocative biography of pre-1948 Palestine. Mya Guarnieri reviews for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Book review: A Palestinian century in a poet's life 

Cartoonist Naji al-Ali was a towering figure in the Palestinian cultural and political scene. His daily political drawings were a knife-twisting, gut-wrenching journey into how Palestinians perceived their predicament. Toufic Haddad reviews A Child in Palestine: The Cartoons of Naji al-Ali for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Book review: The timeless work of Naji al-Ali 

Few recent books have aroused more interest and been more frequently reviewed in the US and Europe prior to the appearance of an English version as historian Shlomo Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People. Raymond Deane reviews for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Book review: Shlomo Sand's "The Invention of the Jewish People"