My piece, “I and My Brother Against My Cousin,” was a detailed consideration of Philip Carl Salzman’s important new book, Culture and Conflict in the Middle East. The piece kicked off a thoughtful column by David Brooks, all of which jump-started sales of the book. I don’t think Salzman’s publishers were ready, because the book at Amazon quickly sold out. Now Amazon is promising that Culture and Conflict will be back in stock on May 1.

Meanwhile, Daniel Pipes has a column out on Salzman and the challenge of democratizing the Middle East. (Check out Pipes’ blurb on Salzman’s Amazon page: some seriously strong praise.) Pipes argues that Islamic countries can become democratic, but says it will take a long time. Above all, says Pipes, democracy won’t happen “until this archaic social system based on the family is dispatched….” This is indeed the critical point that comes out of Salzman’s analysis.

Change can come and religions can reform, but it won’t happen only, or even primarily, as a result of intellectual arguments. If you want to change the Middle East (or promote assimilation in Muslim immigrant populations in the West, I would add) there first has to be a change in the way of life — specifically in the kinship-based social system. It’s impossible to transform a total society quickly, but you can at least develop relatively more modernized sectors, the influence of which can potentially spread.

Ideas matter in this process. Modern, liberal education is critical. But without also adding changes in kinship practices (by, say, breaking the cycle of transnational cousin-marriage in Europe and creating a broader sector of merit-based, rather than kin-based, employment and promotion in the Middle East) the system will not change. Optimist or pessimist, hawk or dove, Salzman’s book at least allows us to recognize some of the key social barriers to cultural change in the Middle East, in a way that few books up to now have done.

By the way, Salzman is now a regular at the important new MESH group blog (organized by Martin Kramer and Stephen Peter Rosen). Here’s Salzman’s latest post. The list of bloggers here is truly impressive. MESH also includes extended papers, like this one from Walter Laqueur, which provoked a fascinating reply by Martin Kramer.