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The Cold War and the Middle East , edited by Yezid Sayigh and Avi Shlaim. 303 pages, chronology, map, index. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. $75.00 (Cloth) ISBN 0-19-829099-3

The book is divided into four parts: the first provides case studies of individuals (i.e. Gamal Abd al-Nasser, Mohammad Reza Shah, and Ayatollah Rouhallah Khomeini) and nations (i.e. Iran and Iraq) that exhibit or adopt a conspiracy mentality; the second examines the contradictory images of the two putative major conspirators in the region, Zionists and imperialists; the third analyzes the style and purpose of conspiracy theorists, ending with a set of common assumptions that fuel their logic; and the fourth traces the reasons for the rise and ubiquity of conspiracism in the modern Middle East. It would be easy in such a study to slip into typecasting, into discussions of the Arab/Muslim mentality, into seeming plotting against the Middle East and Middle Easterners. Pipes is well aware of this danger and tries to avoid it, but he does not always succeed. The problem lies mainly in the lack of detailed analysis. This subject calls for "thick descriptions," ones that follow the rise and spread of specific conspiracies and show how they hampered clear thinking about issues over time. Pipes's case studies are little more than extended anecdotes and he tends to pile them on without analytic purpose. Then there are strange observations, such as: "Emulation of the West meant that the West's enemies became the Middle East's enemies. Because Westerners focus on Jews and secret societies, so too do Arabs or Iranians" (p. 135). Here Pipes suggests that Arab Muslims borrowed the West's enemies with no reason, that anti-Semitism arose in a vacuum in the Middle East. Yet, while Arab Muslims may have looked to European anti-Semitic ideas to wage their battle against Zionism, they certainly did not need the West to tell them that Zionists posed a potential danger to their hegemony in the region. These criticisms aside, The Hidden Hand is an important book. Pipes takes up a sensitive and troubling issue, and levels valid criticisms at Arab Muslim leaders and the methods they employ. It is a beginning point for future study, as Pipes intended. But there is much work to do.