Third Text is an international scholarly journal dedicated to providing critical perspectives on art and visual culture. Third Text addresses the complex cultural realities that emerge when different worldviews meet, and the challenge this poses to Eurocentrism and ethnocentric aesthetic criteria.

This volume argues that by focusing on British and American backgrounds, readers have underestimated the impact of Asia and "the East" on American novelist and short story writer Nathaniel Hawthorne's (1804-1864) writing. The central force in Hawthorne's intellectual development was New England Puritanism. It fascinated even when it sometimes repelled him. It exercised a pull on his imagination which a lifetime of varied experience did not loosen. The author recreates Hawthorne's heritage and examine his readings in material dealing with the East; he examines three of Hawthorne's "early tales" that were all written before 1830; and he looks at Hawthorne's "The Story Teller", the two-volume book of sketches and tales Hawthorne unsuccessfully tried to publish in 1834 and issued piecemeal thereafter in periodicals as annuals. The author also evaluates the role of the Eastern world in Hawthorne's view of Romance and studies some of Hawthorne's "remarkable" heroines -- Beatrice Rapaccini, Hester, Zenobia, and Miriam in particular. The author maintains that the Puritan element in Hawthorne's ancestry has been overstressed and that insufficient attention has been paid to the equally important travel-adventure-exploration aspect of Hawthorne's heritage and craft.

Why did the Lebanese state, the most open and democratic political system in the Middle East, break down between 1967 and 1976? In this major contribution to the debate, Fazel el-Khazen rejects the standard explanations of the Lebanese Civil War and argues instead that the causes were due to the official state ideology, which recognized diversity, dissent and a highly pluralistic population, and then specific external factors: pressures from the Arab-Israeli Conflict, inter-Arab rivalries, and the Palestine Liberation Organization's close connection to Lebanese politics. Using an historical analysis, el-Khazen sheds light on the political situation of the country in the lead up to the conflict and the major role Lebanon's neighbours had in the events. The detailed and comprehensive account uses interviews with the key protagonists in the civil war and analysis of unpublished sources to reveal how and why the breakdown took place.

The sequel to the acclaimed Gaza in Crisis from world-famous political analyst Noam Chomsky and Middle East historian Ilan Pappé. Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, left thousands of Palestinians dead and cleared the way for another Israeli land grab. The need to stand in solidarity with Palestinians has never been greater. Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky, two leading voices in the struggle to liberate Palestine, discuss the road ahead for Palestinians and how the international community can pressure Israel to end its human rights abuses against the people of Palestine. Praise for Gaza in Crisis by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé “This sober and unflinching analysis should be read and reckoned with by anyone concerned with practicable change in the long-suffering region.” —Publishers Weekly “Both authors perform fiercely accurate deconstructions of official rhetoric.” —The Guardian Praise for Noam Chomsky . . . “Chomsky is a global phenomenon . . . perhaps the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet.” —The New York Times Book Review “One of the radical heroes of our age . . . a towering intellect . . . powerful, always provocative.” —The Guardian . . . and Ilan Pappé “Ilan Pappé is Israel’s bravest, most principled, most incisive historian.” —John Pilger, journalist, writer, and filmmaker “Along with the late Edward Said, Ilan Pappé is the most eloquent writer of Palestinian history.” —New Statesman