STANFORD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hoover Institution Press today released Jihad and the Arabian Sea by Camille Pecastaing. In Jihad and the Arabian Sea, Pecastaing looks at the challenges facing the region around the Bab el Mandeb—the tiny strait that separates the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean. He explains how environmental degradation in the region, combined with civil war, piracy, radical Islamism, and terrorism, could lead to more social unrest and violence in an area that is strategically important for trade between Europe, Asia, and Africa. Notably, recent concerns about strengthening ties between Al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab in Somalia have resulted in escalated counter-terrorism efforts in the region.
“Jihad in the Arabian Sea could not be a more timely book,” said Fouad Ajami, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and chair of the Hoover Institution’s Working Group on Islamism and the International Order. “Camille Pecastaing, a talented scholar with eclectic interests, sets out to explore the political culture and ways of Yemen and Somalia and Djibouti, with excursions into Ethiopia. These are lands of failure and trouble, of piracy and extremism. The Unites States is drawn into the web and threats of that volatile region, and Pecastaing is a knowing guide through these ports and interior lands. The writing is luminous and evocative of that world. Geography and ethnicity and bleak economic realities are woven together in this outstanding book.”
In Jihad and the Arabian Sea, Pecastaing looks at the troubled history and geography of the lands across the Bab el Mandeb. He chronicles the tumultuous past and present of key players in the region including Somalia, Yemen, Eritrea, Djibouti, the Sudan, and Ethiopia. He describes the collapse of the Somali state under Syad Barre in the 1980s and discusses how the state of lawlessness in Somalia has led to the rise of piracy in the western Indian Ocean. In addition, he outlines the history of modern Yemen, as well as the events that led up to the civil war of the summer of 2011. Further, he reviews the activity of Al Qaeda in the region, from the assassination attempt against Mubarak in 1995 up to the US embassy bombings in the summer of 1998. The environment in the region has continuously degraded over time, both shores of the Bab el Mandeb are among the hottest places on earth, and water sources are slowly being depleted. Pecastaing’s research sheds light on how these issues have kept the region from evolving into the era of a modern state and why, despite the area’s strategic importance, foreign powers hesitate to intervene.
Camille Pecastaing is a senior associate professor of Middle East studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a contributor to the Hoover Institution's Working Group on Islamism and the International Order. His areas of expertise include historical sociology, behavioral sciences, and comparative politics.
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