Reviews 67

Al-Kitaab fii Taʿallum al-ʿArabiyya (Part Two): A Textbook for

Intermediate Arabic, Teacher’s Edition. By Kristen Brustad,
Mahmoud al-Batal, and Abbas al-Tonsi. 3rd edition.
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013. Pp. 579.
ISBN: 9781589019669.

Launched in the mid-1990s, the Al-Kitaab fii Taʿallum al-

ʿArabiyya textbook series has over the years managed to remain
relevant to Arabic teaching and learning methods, and to become one
of the leading Arabic language teaching manuals in North America.
The third edition of Part Two, released in 2013, is authored by the
same team who first created the series, including Kristen Brustad and
Mahmoud al-Batal, associate professors of Arabic at the University
of Austin, Texas, and Abbas al-Tonsi, senior lecturer at Georgetown
University School of Foreign Service in Qatar.
The most significant addition to the new edition is the online
course management module available via the Companion website
(http://alkitaabtextbook.com). Registration allows instructors to
create courses and classes (inviting students to join a course), and
manage activities, assignments, and grading for each course or class.
Similarly, registered students get easy access to interactive and self-
correcting versions of the exercises featured in the textbook, as well
as to the video and audio materials. It should be noted that while the
Teacher’s Edition textbook includes complimentary access to the
Companion website, student access is sold separately. The other
important innovation of the third edition is the possibility of reading
all audio (Mp3 files) and video (Mp4 files) materials featured on the
accompanying DVD on iTunes or any iTunes-compatible device.
The structure of this latest edition of Al-Kitaab fii Taʿallum al-
ʿArabiyya Part Two is very similar to that of earlier ones. It consists
of ten lessons spanning a wide range of topics related to daily life,
such as religious celebrations in the Middle East and North Africa,
and topics of general interest, such as Arabs in America,
Immigration, etc. Each lesson includes recurrent categories: New
vocabulary ( ‫ ;)الجديد المفردا‬Grammatical rules (‫ ;)القواعد‬Cultural
material ( ‫ ;)الثقاق‬and Listening, reading and writing exercises
( ‫ الكتاب‬، ‫ القراء‬،‫)ااستماع‬. Lessons rely heavily on a great variety of
video and audio materials. The manual continues the stories of Maha
and Khalid in formal and Egyptian Arabic, and Nasreen and Tariq in
Levantine Arabic, and introduces four new characters: young
engaged couples Ibrahim and Muna (Egyptians), and Ghassan and
68 MELA Notes 89 (2016)

Muna (Syrians). In addition, the third edition uses authentic video

programming materials from Arabic television stations and websites
like Al-Jazeera (Qatar), LBC (Lebanon), and UTR (Egypt). At the
end of the volume (p. 293), the user will find grammar and reference
charts, a grammar index, two glossaries—English/Arabic and
Arabic/English—as well as an answer key. The book is printed on
acid-free paper.
The third edition of Al-Kitaab fii Taʿallum al-ʿArabiyya Part
Two is a practical textbook well suited for Arabic teaching and
learning in a classroom setting. Teachers will undoubtedly appreciate
the strong capabilities of the online course management module,
while students will enjoy the opportunity to access audio and video
contents on their personal devices. And thanks to the audio and video
materials borrowed from Arabic television and websites, the learning
experience offered by this last edition is much more authentic and
insightful than it would have been otherwise.

ANAÏS SALAMON
MCGILL UNIVERSITY

______________________________________________

Jurji Zaidan and the Foundations of Arab Nationalism: A Study. By

Thomas Philipp, Hilary Kilpatrick, Paul Starkey, and Jirjī
Zaydān. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2014. Pp. 451,
with bibliography, glossary, references, index. $49.95
(hardcover). ISBN: 9780815633587.

Jurji Zaidan and the Foundations of Arab Nationalism presents

and analyzes the thought of one of the most prolific and influential
public intellectuals of the 20th-century Arab Nahda (revival or
awakening) movement. Jurji Zaidan (also written Jirjī Zaydān) wrote
extensively on Arab heritage, history, language, society, and religion,
as well as popularizing the genre of historical novels in modern
Arabic literature. This title, published in cooperation with the Zaidan
Foundation, aims to demonstrate a link between Zaidan’s secular
analysis of history and language and the development of his pan-
Arab nationalist identity which predates and transcends Islamic
history. Unlike other works on Zaidan, this work attempts to present
his thinking on history, language, and nationalism as an integrated