Introduction

Every Arab generation since the 1800s has experienced the collapse of one or more aspects of the premodern social order and the gestation, difficult labor, and occasional Cesarian birth of a new one. The continuous interplay between elements of the old and the new has given the Arab World a permanent state of “transition”. The Arab social order in the 1980s is a product of previous orders intersecting with regional and global events. The symbolic point of its emergence may date back to the Arab defeat of 1967, to the death of Nasser in 1970, or to the Arab sense of “triumph” in their fourth war with Israel in 1973. Like all societal configurations, the new Arab social order has its images—outward manifestations of substructural dynamics. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.