Egypt in the Arab World is a rigorous and systematic study of the structure and behaviour of Egypt's foreign policy towards the Arab states of the Middle East. The major concern of the book is with Egypt's regional activity under Nasser's charismatic leadership. However, a long and assiduously researched chapter at the end of the book brings the study up to date by exploring Egypt's foreign policy under Sadat's presidency.

The book is divided into two parts. By using the method of historical analysis, the first and shorter section attempts a detailed and in-depth account of the development of Egypt's various inter-actions with the states of the Arab world over the period 1952-70. Thus, through concentrating primarily on the nexus action-response-reaction over a specific time-span, an understanding of the dynamic nature of Egypt's external relations is facilitated.

More methodologically orientated, the second and major section of the book begins with an introductory chapter setting a simplified model (a framework of analysis) which involves the identification of the elements of Egypt's foreign policy and their classification under a series of categories around which the analysis is structured and organised. The categories employed are the capabilities of, and the constraints on, Egypt's foreign policy, the institutions and processes of Egyptian policy-making, the values and images of the decision-makers, the objectives pursued by the policy-makers, and the instruments with which these objective were implemented. Part II complements the analysis in Part I by identifying and explaining the general underlying factors which in their totality determined the specific nature of Egypt's foreign policy under Nasser. In the last chapter, the framework is applied to the period of Sadat's presidency and, as such, rigorous comparison is facilitated.

This scholarly work combines the theoretical tenets of foreign policy analysis and the empirical study of Middle Eastern politics, and as such should prove particularly attractive to the area specialist and to the inter-national relations scholar.

Dr. A. I. Dawisha is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Lancaster. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, he received his undergraduate training at the University of Lancaster and later attained his Ph.D degree from the London School of Economics.

He has published widely in the fields of foreign policy and Middle Eastern politics.

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