This book sheds light on cultural expressions of Arab Nationalism and the contradictory meanings often attached to it. It presents nationalism as an experienceable set of identity markers - in stories, visual culture, narratives of memory and struggles with ideology. Using case studies, the book transcends a conventional history that reduces nationalism in the Arab lands to a pattern of political rise and decline. It suggests Arabs have constructed an identifiable shared national culture, and it critically dissects conceptions about Arab nationalism as an easily graspable secular and authoritarian ideology modelled on Western ideas and visions of modernity.
