| Abstrakt: |
Hezbollah: A History of the "Party of God" aspired to become a leading reference work on the party. On close scrutiny, it turned out to be a mundane book based on a selective reading of secondary sources. Although the authors boast a privileged access to Hezbollah, hardly any empirical fieldwork has been done; not a single interview with Hezbollah's rank and file is reported. The book is marred by factual errors as well as mistakes in principle and wrong analyses, which eventually lead to wrong conclusions. The book also claims to be up-to-date, even dealing with the Syrian crisis that erupted in 2012. It is true that the book was published in 2012; however, the most up-to-date piece of data is dated May 2009. The overall argument of the book is speculative in nature, lacking any substantial humanities' or social science theory; rather, name-dropping seems to be the norm. Even in documentation and historiography the book is marred by numerous mistakes, as such an inadequate reference. The clandestine handbooks--the so-called "Training Manuals for Hezbollah Militants" the authors are proud to provide--turn out to be open access ideological pamphlets published by sympathetic audiences to the party's cause, as such poorly referenced open source secondary sources in Arabic. Because of the deceiving nature of the book, its over ambitious unrealised project, and its gross inadequacies, it should be avoided at all costs since it gives an erroneous reading of the party that might result in wrong policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
