As part of my insatiable jones to understand all thing foreign, I’ve spent the past 3 years or so trying to acquire a basic understanding of the politics and culture of the middle east. As a result, I’ve gone through a good many books, and either bought or seriously considered nearly every Arabic Language book available at your average Borders or B&N.

I thought I’d share the ones I consider the best in class, as a bit of guidance to new learners.

Arabic Language

I sincerely believe that you can’t really understand any culture without speaking the language, at least to the level of inferring mood and catching basic nuance. While i’m far from that level, here are the books that I would use if I were to start from scratch:

The Arabic Alphabet: How to Read & Write It (Paperback)

Although many books offer English-encoded pronunciations (known as transliterations) of Arabic words, the full range of sounds (not to mention all of the easiest sources of practice) are off limits until you can really fluidly read and write from English sound -> Arabic letter(s). Nearly every general Arabic book condenses the whole written language into one or two quick lessons, and leaves the user woefully bereft of practice.

This book is an excellent starting point towards learning. If you just run through all of the drills by hand one or two letters a day, not only will you have a notebook filled with practice, but you’ll be finished in about two weeks, and you’ll know you really possess the gumption to work every day on the ‘hard stuff’ without blowing $100 on books first.

Your First 100 Words in Arabic

This is a quick introduction, with slow pacing, and a number of different drill styles (flash cards, crosswords) that help to drill in the basic vocab.

Most importantly, there’s an audio CD with pronunciation tracks for each lesson, and verbal exchanges / exercises. Having a clear pronunciation guide is critical, especially early on, so this book does a good job for the length/price of introducing the subject to Arabic vocab.

Ultimate Arabic with Audio CDs

I’ve tried TONS of primary textbooks, and I consider this to be by far the best for a number of reasons:

• Vocabulary choices are well thought out, and they don’t commit the cardinal sin of language textbooks: throwing far too many new words at the user each lesson. After the necessarily dense introduction, lessons include 10-30 new words, many of which are related to previous words (either by root stem or verb form), which makes them less daunting.
• As with the previous item, all vocab and sample conversations are on the audio CDs
• The grammar lessons are given at a fairly basic level, the reader isn’t expected to be familiar with concepts like indirect objects or gerunds without explanation.
• The book is split between standard (educated, media) Arabic, and colloquial expressions of the major sub-groups (Levantine, Egyptian, etc). This allows a user to gain enough basics to follow a newspaper story, as well as (hopefully) enough ’street’ language to understand vendors or taxi cab drivers, and (thanks to the CDs) a modicum of experience with differing accents.
• The vocab is geared towards travelers, but they include a fair number of media/news words (concepts like president, government, exchange rate) as well.

Caveat Emptor, there are a few noticeable typos, especially with regard to placement of vowel markings, but they’re likely not terribly detrimental to the beginner.

Middle Eastern Politics

I’ve split this section into more ‘high level’ easy reading, and more ‘in depth’ studies

High Level

Longitudes & Attitudes

Thomas Friedman’s anecdotal style makes for fast reading at the cost of some depth and formal evidence, but his political neutrality and general insight make this a great introduction to the various middle-eastern players.

The No-Nonsense Guide to Islam

A great, bare-essentials rundown of the history, basic factions, and overall political viewpoints of the primary Muslim groups. It provides just enough depth to comprehend other books and a news coverage with respect to Islamic politics.

In Depth

The following books are much deeper, but also more technical, and assume a basic college-level understanding of statistics and economics.

Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East

Insightful, thorough, and filled with graphs and well-cited data, this the best overview from an economic development standpoint in print today.

Between Memory and Desire: The Middle East in a Troubled Age

A brilliant, readable overview of the major movements in modern middle-eastern political thought, this is the historical and political counterpart to the demographic and economic lens that the previous book provides.

It’s a stellar look at the evolution of post-colonial middle eastern political movements and attidues.

The Middle East and Islamic World Reader

This is a basic collection of THE primary sources for every major political development in the Middle East (Both Arab & Israeli). If you’re interested in the actual sources and not just their effects, this is the place to go.

Short introductions to each section provide context and explanation for the more exotic points, and the authors do a particularly strong job of tying the sources together, so the book reads more like a coherent narrative than just a collection of polemics, letters, and government documents.

What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism

Examining data about all of the radicals arrested by the U.S. in Iraq, Krueger comes to some startling conclusions about the effect of socio-economic status and the root causes of terrorism.

His data set is necessarily fairly thin, but his conclusions are solid statistically and his thesis is extremely well presented.

If you read one book on the current security situation in Iraq (or the middle east in general) make it this one.  Even if you don’t agree with the conclusions, his argument is thought provoking and extremely well supported.