The Rise of the Arab American Left

“A work of impressive scope, cogency, precision and credibility, one that breaks new ground in Arab-American studies and will be a key scholarly resource for years to come.” — Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

“[Pennock] writes with intelligence and makes relevant the early effort of radical young Arab Americans who organized themselves and made alliances with other sections of the movement in the ‘60s and the ‘70s. . . . A much needed and definitive book that makes the historical connections of these developments and advances our common struggle for equality and justice.” — Mondoweiss

“Readers will emerge with details of Arab-American political efforts in their local communities as they began integrating the issues emerging from their homeland with mistreatment in the US.” — Middle East Journal

“Must reading for anyone seeking to understand Arab-American political and social movements....its accessible style and broad scope should attract general attention from anyone seeking to understand the volatile decades of the 1960s to 1980s.” — The Michigan Historical Review

“I am pleased to recommend Pamela Pennock’s worthwhile contribution to the literature on social and political movements, in particular the participation of Arab Americans.” — Race & Class

“Expands our understanding of the transnational dimensions, local constraints, and shifting historical contexts of Palestinian political struggle. . . . Makes for essential reading.” — International Journal of Middle East Studies

“Pennock’s book highlights the importance of centralizing Palestine, historicizing contemporary Arab American activism, and tracing the intersections between the many homes that diasporic activists occupy in their fight against racism within the United States and warfare within its imperial reach.” — Middle East Report

“Offers valuable lessons not only for students of history but for current practitioners of intersectional organizing and coalition building who seek to build upon the work of those who came before them.”—The Journal of Palestine Studies

“With keen insight and voluminous research, Pennock recaptures a political and social universe that has been, till now, dimly remembered at best. She transforms our understanding of the American Left by showing how Middle East–oriented political activism, spearheaded by individuals with kinship ties to the Arab world, modestly but unmistakably recast progressive American discourse on the politics of the Middle East. For years to come, this book will be the definitive history of Arab American political activism in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.” — Salim Yaqub, author of Imperfect Strangers: Americans, Arabs, and U.S.–Middle East Relations in the 1970s

“In The Rise of the Arab American Left, Pamela Pennock writes Arab Americans into the history of the civil rights and racial power movements of the 1950s to 1980s. As she tells the stories of student and labor-union activists, she charts the arc of activist concern from its early emphasis on events in Palestine to more U.S.-based campaigns in the 1980s, amidst growing harassment of Arab Americans by government agents. This is first-rate history, thoughtfully conceived, rich in scholarship, convincing of argument, and written in sparkling prose.” — Paul Spickard, University of California, Santa Barbara