The Foreign Service Journal, March 2016

88 MARCH 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL tion, rapid shifts in pacing, and some overemphasis on death and destruction in a film with a broader purpose. The producers may feel that this will rivet viewers, but it may also confuse them and add to their sense of vulnerability. It is one thing to trace the escalating threat of terrorism directed at U.S. interests worldwide and quite another to linger over scenes of mayhem in a film that might otherwise instill confidence in the mission of the Foreign Service. And while relatively few Americans died in or near the 1998 attack on the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, some 4,000 Kenyans were killed or injured there. Crimes of that sort are global in their impact. U.S. Ambassador Prudence Bushnell stood valiantly with her Kenyan hosts in the aftermath of that attack, yet the film does not convey that her stance was well understood here or that massive changes in embassy design followed directly. Furthermore, juxtaposing a jumble of terrorist incidents out of chronological order strips them of context and renders themmeaningless as history. William Harrop and Edward Marks, two career diplomats who also served as consulting producers, deserve accolades for their efforts to underscore the historic significance of the Foreign Service. While the film was not designed as a promo- tional device, the U.S. Diplomacy Center will surely benefit from any increased public awareness it generates. More importantly, the film arrives at a propitious moment when diplomats see their authority increasingly marginal- ized, and some sense respect for their mission is waning. At such a time, if the film stimulates discussion, even heated debate, it is tremendously worthwhile. Jane C. Loeffler is an historian and author of The Architecture of Diplomacy: Building America’s Embassies (Princeton Architec- tural Press, 2010). She has been honored by the Department of State for her work. She has contributed a number of articles to The Foreign Service Journal, primarily relating to embassy design and security. Voices We Need to Hear Everyday Life in the MuslimMiddle East Edited by Donna Lee Bowen, Evelyn A. Early and Becky Schulthies, Indiana University Press, Third Edition, 2014, $30, paperback, 504 pages. Reviewed By Stephen W. Buck There is a reason why Everyday Life in the MuslimMiddle East has recently come out in its third (substantially revised and updated) edition. Edited by a professor of Middle East studies and political science, an anthropologist, and anthropologist and recently retired Senior FSO Evelyn Early, this book is the best I can recom- mend for those wishing to go beyond the fear-mongering about the so-called Islamic State group to understand how most of the Middle East lives. While written by academics, the book is far from being “aca- demic.” It is usefully divided into sections: Generations and Life Passages, Gender Relations, Home, Community and Work and, probably particularly of use for those wanting real insight, Islam in Practice and Perfor- mance and Expression, which covers social media and recent events. Each section contains several chap- ters, each of which is a topical essay by a sociologist, psychologist or other expert researcher. In the section, “Islam in Prac- tice and Performance and Expression,” chapters bear titles such as “Deposed Leaders, YouTube and the Contested Language of Arab Uprisings,” “Martyrs and the January 25 [Egyptian] Revolu- tion,” “Sounds of the Syrian Revolution,” and also contain poetry from the Yemeni civil war. Each chapter of the book starts with a concise, well-written summary of the results of the author’s research, making it easy for readers to locate chapters bear- ing on their particular interests. What makes this book special is that so many of its contributors really are able to get inside what is going on in the MuslimMiddle East, the so-called Arab “street.” Most of them have actually lived close to those they write about and speak the local language. Early, for example, spent five years studying women in a poor section of Cairo and is fluent in Arabic. In their introduction to the book, the editors point out that the “every- day approach” is extremely helpful in understanding how Middle Easterners in specific local contexts perceive highly charged questions such as what is “tra- ditional” and what is “modern” and how they mark their own distinctions between what is “honorable” and what is “shameful.” The essays based on this approach also demonstrate how family values are accom- modated to workday demands; how religious preachers present their interpretations of Islam’s tenets on satellite television; and how class distinctions between workers and administrators on factory floors contribute to the discontent that fueled the Egyptian uprising. Despite media efforts to reduce the “Arab Spring” uprisings to an artifact of Twitter and other social media, much of