Culture and Dignity – Dialogues Between the Middle East and the West

Culture and Dignity explores the roots of the complex connections between the East and the West. Laura Nader uses ethnography to differentiate between the stereotype and reality of East-West relations and Arab documents, from the Crusades as well as contemporary Arab ethnography, to deconstruct the filters through which we see each other. By examining historical exchanges between East and West, Nader reveals how privileging difference has often led to violence and desensitization. In her vivid examples from history as well as analysis of ongoing events, she delineates the myriad indignities and false assumptions that surround Western dealings with Arabs and Muslims.

This highly readable treatise from an influential voice in contemporary anthropology is based on the premise that a look in the mirror is essential for understanding what is going on today - the fundamentalisms we share - religious, economic, and political - dignity - theirs and ours. Culture and Dignity offers more than a half-century of personal and professional experience in presenting Middle Eastern and Western perspectives on one another, and insights into relationships between East and West into the twenty-first century.