Gilbert Achcar has been called “one of the best analysts of the contemporary Arab world” (Le Monde) and “the preeminent Marxist scholar of the region” (CounterPunch). He is Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS, University of London. His many books include:
Eastern Cauldron: Islam, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq in a Marxist Mirror
The Clash of Barbarisms: The Making of the New World Disorder
Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy (dialogues with Noam Chomsky)
The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives
Marxism, Orientalism, Cosmopolitanism
The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising
We recently had the pleasure of hosting Professor Achcar at the University of Denver’s Center for Middle East Studies for a stimulating series of lectures, forums and panel discussions about his recent work. During his visit, I recorded the following interview with him for our CMES Conversations series.
We took his book The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising as a starting point from which to examine the roots of the Syrian uprising, the nature of the Assad regime, the different shapes of the uprisings across the region, and the fate of Syria. Here it is:
P U L S E 