Cover of Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire

Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire

Edward W. Said once urged the legendary Eqbal Ahmad not to 'leave your works scattered to the winds, or even recorded on tape, but collected and published in several volumes for everyone to read. Then those who don't have the privilege of knowing you will know what a truly remarkable, gifted man you are.'

Read more

Unfortunately, Ahmad died suddenly before Said's wish came to fruition. Now, for the first time, Ahmad's most provocative ideas are available in book form.

In these intimate and wide-ranging conversations, Ahmad discusses nationalism, ethnic conflict, the politics of memory, and liberation struggles around the world.

Praise for Eqbal Ahmad:

"Eqbal Ahmad, perhaps the shrewdest and most original anti-imperialist analyst of Asia and Africa, was a man of enormous charisma and incorruptible ideals. He had an almost instinctive attraction to movements of the oppressed and the persecuted, and a formidable knowledge of history. Arabs, for example, learned more from him about the failures of Arab nationalism than from anyone else. Ahmad was that rare thing, an intellectual unintimidated by power or authority."

-Edward W. Said, author of Culture and Imperialism

"Eqbal Ahmad was a shining example of what a true internationalist should be. Eqbal was at home in the history of all the world's great civilizations. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of states past and present, and he knew that states had a rightful role to play. But he also knew that states existed to serve people, not the other way around, and he had little to do with governments, except as a thorn in their side. To friends, colleagues, and students, however, he gave unstintingly of himself and his time. His example and his memory will inspire many to carry on his work."

-Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations

"A very dedicated and honorable activist, Eqbal was right in the middle of everything. He was a student of revolution and imperialism and a very good one."

-Noam Chomsky, MIT

"Eqbal Ahmad was unique in combining compassion for the dispossessed-en masse and one by one; the intellectual capacity to analyze cultural, political, and economic issues on a transnational level; and an ability to raise his always eloquent voice on behalf of constructive and original solutions."

-Victory Navasky, Publisher and Editorial Director, The Nation

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 200 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within Shares Pakistan, nonfiction, South Asia
  2. Colonialism / Postcolonialism Shares nonfiction, colonialism, politics
  3. Pakistan: Eye of the Storm Shares Pakistan, South Asia, politics
  4. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism Shares colonialism, nonfiction, politics

“People who read Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond
  2. The Punishment of Gaza
  3. Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer
  4. The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity

“If you want more of the same (politics about colonialism), start with these.”

  1. Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military
  2. Selected Subaltern Studies
  3. Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War
  4. 9-11

“If it was the Pakistan that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Magnificent Delusions: Pakistan, the United States, and an Epic History of Misunderstanding
  2. The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power
  3. Pakistan: A Hard Country
  4. The Idea of Pakistan

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
  2. Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture
  3. Imperialism: A Study
  4. Nations and Nationalism