Eqbal Ahmad

Confronting Empire

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by Eqbal Ahmad, David Barsamian, Interviews with

South End Press

Due/Published August 2000, 204 pages, paper

ISBN 0896086151

"Eqbal Ahmad, perhaps the shrewdest and most original anti-imperialist analyst of Asia and Africa . . . was] a man of enormous charisma and incorruptible ideals. . . . He had an almost instinctive attraction to movements of the oppressed and the persecuted . . . [and] a formidable knowledge of history. Arabs, for example, learned more from him about the failures of Arab nationalism than from anyone else. . . . Ahmad was that rare thing, an intellectual unintimidated by power or authority."--Edward W. Said

For the first time ever, Ahmad's most provocative ideas are available in book form. In these intimate and wide-ranging conversations, Ahmad discusses nationalism, ethnic conflict, the nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan, the politics of memory, imperialism, and liberation struggles around the world. Ahmad died suddenly in the spring of 1999.

"[Eqbal Ahmad] was a shining example of what a true internationalist should be. . . . Eqbal was at home in the history of all the world's great civilizations. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of states past and present, and he knew that states had a rightful role to play. But he also knew that states existed to serve peoplenot the other way aroundand he had little to do with governments, except as a thorn in their side. To friends, colleagues, and students, however, he gave unstintingly of himself and his time. . . . His example and his memory will inspire many to carry on his work"--Kofi Annan

"Eqbal Ahmad was unique in combining compassion for the dispossessed--en masse and one by one; the intellectual capacity to analyze cultural, political, and economic issues on a transnational level; and an ability to raise his always eloquent voice on behalf of constructive and original solutions."--Victory Navasky

"For the thousands of people who have missed Eqbal Ahmad in the year since he died, this book comes like rain during a drought. In these interviews, we hear Ahmad's compelling voice again, musing over the Indian subcontinent, Algeria, the United States, and Palestine; recounting his encounters with Mahatma Gandhi and Yasir Arafat; fulminating against the West's pusillanimity over Bosnia and Kosovo; laying out his solution to the Kashmir conflict; and discussing his plans to found a university in Pakistan named after the Arab historian and sociologist Ibn Khaldun. Such is the range and breadth of David Barsamian's interviews, my only regret is that the book is not twice its length."--Radha Kumar, Council on Foreign Relations