pt. 1. Arab identity and issues of diversity and integration: out of many, one. 1. Social and political integration: alternative visions of the future. Historical context. 2. Arab society: basic characteristic features. A critical approach: some methodological observations. Some characteristic features of Arab society. Basics of the physical setting, demography, and ecology. 3. Arab identity: e pluribus unum. The Arab sense of belonging. Shared culture and its variations. The place of Arabs in history and their common experiences. Shared economic interests. External challenges and political unity. 4. The continuity of old cleavages: tribe, village, city. The Bedouin way of life. The peasantry and the village. The city: urbanization of society. Nature of the relationships between tribe, village, and city -- pt. 2. Social structures and institutions: out of one, many. 5. Social classes: beyond the mosaic model. The emerging Arab economic order. Bases of class distinction and formation. Basic classes in contemporary Arab society. Class relations: class consciousness and class struggle. 6. The Arab family and the challenge of change. The basic characteristics of the Arab family. Marriage and divorce patterns. The family and society. 7. Religion in society. The sociology of islam. The social origins of religion. Religion and sect. Official versus folk or popular religion. Religions as mechanisms of control, instigation, and reconciliation. The interrelationship between religion and other social institutions. Religion and the state -- Secularism versus theocracy. Alienation from and in religion. Religion and change: transformation or conformity? 8. Arab politics: its social context. The starting point of analysis. The politics of the urban big bourgeoisie. The politics of the intermediate national bourgeoisie: western liberalism, nationalism, Arab socialism, and religious fundamentalism. The working classes and the left. The authoritarian nature of the Arab systems. Conclusion: the crisis of civil society -- pt. 3. The dynamics of Arab culture. 9. National character and value orientations. The question of national character. Arab value orientations. 10. Creative expression: society and literary orientations. Orientations in Arabic literature. Novels of reconciliation. Novels of exposure. Novels of revolutionary change. 11. Arab thought: problems of renewal, modernity, and transformation. Arab thought in the formative period (1850-1914). Arab thought and the struggle for national independence (1918-1945). Independence and postindependence, 1945-1992: researching the roots of disaster -- pt. 4. The crisis of civil society approaching the horizon of the twenty-first century. 12. Conclusion. Visions for the future.