From Fouad Ajami, an acclaimed author and chronicler of Arab politics, comes a compelling account of how a generation of Arab intellectuals tried to introduce cultural renewals in their homelands through the forces of modernity and secularism. Ultimately, they came to face disappointment, exile, and, on occasion, death. Brilliantly weaving together the strands of a tumultuous century in Arab political thought, history, and poetry, Ajami takes us from the ruins of Beirut's once glittering metropolis to the land of Egypt, where struggle rages between a modernist impulse and an Islamist insurgency, from Nasser's pan-Arab nationalist ambitions to the emergence of an uneasy Pax Americana in Arab lands, from the triumphalism of the Gulf War to the continuing anguished debate over the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords.

For anyone who seeks to understand the Middle East, here is an insider's unflinching analysis of the collision between intellectual life and political realities in the Arab world today.

Fouad Ajami is the Majid Khadduri Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Born in the south of Lebanon and raised in Beirut, he is the author of The Dream Palace of the Arabs, The Arab Predicament, The Vanished Iman, and Beirut: City of Regrets. He is a contributing editor for The New Republic and U.S. News and World Report and is a member of the editorial board of Foreign Affairs. His work on Middle Eastern politics and culture has been recognized with a MacArthur Fellowship. He lives in New York City.