Halliday, Fred 1946–

(Frederick Halliday)

PERSONAL: Born 1946, in Dublin, Ireland. Education: Attended Oxford University; London School of Economics and Political Science, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Office—London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of International Relations, Houghton St., London WC2A 2AE, England.

CAREER: London School of Economics and Political Science, professor of international relations, 1983–.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Isaac Deutscher, Russia, China, and the West: A Contemporary Chronicle, 1953–1966, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1970.

Arabia without Sultans, Penguin (Baltimore, MD), 1974, published as Arabia without Sultans: A Political Survey of Instability in the Arab World, Vintage Books (New York, NY), 1975.

Mercenaries: Counter-Insurgency in the Gulf, Gulf Committee, London, 1976, revised edition, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation for Spokesman Books (Nottingham, England), 1977.

Iran, Dictatorship and Development, Penguin (New York, NY), 1979.

(With Maxine Molyneux) The Ethiopian Revolution, NLB (London, England), 1981.

Soviet Policy in the Arc of Crisis, Institute for Policy Studies (Washington, DC), 1981, revised edition published as Threat from the East?: Soviet Policy from Afghanistan and Iran to the Horn of Africa, Penguin (New York, NY), 1982.

The Making of the Second Cold War, Verso (London, England), 1983.

Aspects of South Yemen's Foreign Policy 1967–82, University of London (London, England), 1985.

Beyond Irangate: The Reagan Doctrine and the Third World, Transnational Institute (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 1987.

(With Igor Artemiev) International Economic Security: Soviet and British Approaches, Royal Institute of International Affairs (London, England), 1988.

(Editor, with Hamza Alavi) State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan, Monthly Review Press (New York, NY), 1988.

Cold War, Third World: An Essay on Soviet-U.S. Relations, Hutchinson Radius (London, England), 1989.

From Kabul to Managua: Soviet-American Relations in the 1980s, Pantheon Books (New York, NY), 1989.

European Neutralism and Cold War Politics, University of Sheffield (Sheffield, England), 1990.

Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen, 1967–1987 ("Cambridge Middle East Library" series), Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1990.

Arabs in Exile: Yemeni Migrants in Urban Britain, I.B. Tauris (New York, NY), 1992.

Rethinking International Relations, University of British Columbia Press (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), 1994.

Does Islamic Fundamentalism Pose a Threat to the West?, Institute for Jewish Policy Research (London, England), 1996.

Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and Politics in the Middle East (essays), I.B. Tauris (New York, NY), 1996.

Revolution and World Politics: The Rise and Fall of the Sixth Great Power, Duke University Press (Durham, NC), 1999.

Nation and Religion in the Middle East, Lynne Rienner Publishers (Boulder, CO), 2000.

The World at 2000: Perils and Promises, Macmillan (Basingstoke, England), 2000.

Two Hours That Shook the World: September 11, 2001; Causes and Consequences (essays), Saqi (London, England), 2002.

The Middle East in International Relations: Power, Politics, and Ideology, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

100 Myths about the Middle East, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2005.

Contributor of introductions, forewords, and chapters to books by others.

SIDELIGHTS: As an expert in international affairs, Fred Halliday has written many volumes, particularly on subjects regarding the Middle East. Halliday's more recent books include Rethinking International Relations, published in the mid-1990s, in which he studies the participants in modern world affairs, including women's organizations.

In reviewing the essays of Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and Politics in the Middle East, Political Science Quarterly contributor Fawaz A. Gerges wrote that "Halliday contends that although the clash of civilizations hypothesis has recently gained currency in the West, it is ahistorical. This myth, asserts Halliday, is paradoxically propagated by a strange combination of rival political camps: Western rightwing politicians and observers, who seek to turn the Muslim world into another enemy, and some Islamist militants, who resent the West's influence and advocate a confrontation with it." In his book Halliday contends that Islam is a flexible religion that offers many choices and experiences socioeconomic difficulties similar to those found in other parts of the world. This approach is used to respond to the issues of the moment. A For a Change critic commented that "Islamic states criticize the West for employing double standards and using human rights selectively as a political tool. So, partly in reaction to this and partly because of their contempt for the permissive society they perceive in the West, Islamic states have proposed their own set of human rights in accordance with their interpretation of the Qur'an and the Shari'ah." Halliday rejects this Islamic position on human rights, asserting that no religion can usurp the discussion of human rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Edmund O'Sullivan reviewed Islam and the Myth of Confrontation for the Middle East Economic Digest, noting that Halliday names economic issues as a problem that should be targeted by the West. The standards of Muslim countries should be raised and equality, particularly of women, promoted, while at the same time, Islamist dictatorships should not be tolerated. "Halliday plays down Islam's aggressive qualities," wrote O'Sullivan. "In the sense that Islam does not represent a military challenge he is right. But in a much more important sense he is wrong. Like Christianity, Islam is a proselytising religion made for all humanity, not just part of it. Every diligent Muslim dreams of a time when the whole world will accept the sharia. Islam by its very nature is combative, at least intellectually." The subjects of other chapters include Orientalism, the Iranian revolution, and the Gulf War.

The title of Revolution and World Politics: The Rise and Fall of the Sixth Great Power borrows from a quote by Karl Marx, author of The Communist Manifesto, who in 1854 said that it would be the "sixth great power" (revolution) that would have the greatest effect on the international politics of the time. In an American Political Science Review article on the book, Mark N. Katz commented on Halliday's expertise with regard to his subject matter, not only regarding the Persian Gulf region, but others as well. "Instead of being organized around case studies, the chapters in this book examine various themes, such as the export of revolution, revolutionary foreign policy, counterrevolution, war and revolution, and the systemic constraints on revolutionary regimes."

In the book Halliday studies 200 years of revolutions and refers to others that took place in earlier times. He writes that they all attempted "to export revolution, by arms, political support and ideological encourage-ment," and most failed. The former Soviet Union was successful, for example, in establishing communism only in those places they occupied, and the Nicaraguan revolution of 1979 evolved internally even though Cuba's Castro attempted to foment revolution in most of the countries of Latin America. Historian reviewer Robert A. Pastor wrote: "Citing Hannah Arendt, Halliday concludes that the American War of Independence may have been the most enduring of revolutions because of three ideas: that government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed; that freedom requires constraints on government behavior; and that real peace requires the spread of democracy." A New Statesman contributor noted that previous studies of revolutions lacked an international dimension, adding that "Halliday's is a truly global overview—and the most stimulating study of its subject to appear in many years."

Two Hours That Shook the World: September 11, 2001; Causes and Consequences is a collection of essays, the first and last of which were written after 9/11. Library Journal contributor Marcia L. Sprules noted that although some of the essays do not at first appear to be related to the tragedy, "in fact they help give the terrible events a kind of context." Halliday provides the background of how terrorism became a political instrument and speculates on the future given the world's shifting political landscape.

Spectator reviewer James Buchan called The Middle East in International Relations: Power, Politics, and Ideology "a good-humoured but pessimistic book." Here Halliday traces the history of the region, beginning with the first holy war and British and French colonialism through the current situation in Iraq, oil, and globalization. David Pitt wrote in Booklist that, "despite its somewhat glib title," 100 Myths about the Middle East "is a vastly informative (not to mention necessary) book." In the book Halliday cites one hundred facts that are assumed to be true, and then debunks them. He includes one section titled "A Glossary of Crisis: September 11, 2001 and Its Linguistic Aftermath," which explains terms new to the political debate of recent years. A team of reviewers wrote in New Internationalist that "Halliday wears his erudition lightly and writes in a splendidly direct manner," concluding of 100 Myths about the Middle East that the book serves as "an excellent antidote to the special interests and special pleading that constitute much of the discussion of the region."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Political Science Review, December, 2000, Mark N. Katz, review of Revolution and World Politics: The Rise and Fall of the Sixth Great Power, p. 991.

Booklist, August, 2005, David Pitt, review of 100 Myths about the Middle East, p. 1987.

Economist, December 16, 1995, review of Rethinking International Relations, p. 11; January 27, 1996, review of Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and Politics in the Middle East, p. 79.

For a Change, August-September, 1996, review of Islam and the Myth of Confrontation, p. 19.

Foreign Affairs, September-October, 1996, William B. Quandt, review of Islam and the Myth of Confrontation, p. 154.

Historian, fall, 2001, Robert A. Pastor, review of Revolution and World Politics, p. 186.

Library Journal, February 15, 2002, Marcia L. Sprules, review of Two Hours That Shook the World: September 11, 2001; Causes and Consequences, p. 165.

Middle East, February, 2002, Fred Rhodes, review of Two Hours That Shook the World, p. 40.

Middle East Economic Digest, September 6, 1996, Edmund O'Sullivan, review of Islam and the Myth of Confrontation, p. 31.

Middle East Journal, autumn, 2003, review of Iran Encountering Globalization: Problems and Prospects, p. 699.

New Internationalist, June, 2005, Elizabeth Eve and others, review of 100 Myths about the Middle East, p. 30.

New Statesman, January 20, 1995, Mary Kaldor, review of Rethinking International Relations, p. 38; November 8, 1999, review of Revolution and World Politics, p. 54.

Political Science Quarterly, summer, 1997, Fawaz A. Gerges, review of Islam and the Myth of Confrontation, p. 337.

Spectator, April 2, 2005, James Buchan, review of The Middle East in International Relations: Power, Politics, and Ideology, p. 48.

ONLINE

1Lit.com, http://www.angelfire.com/dc/mbooks/mythofconfrontation.html (December 4, 2005), Nadeem Azam, "An Interview with Professor Fred Halliday: Are Islam and the West at Loggerheads?"