Issue Editors: Waleed Hazbun, Najib Hourani and Lisa Hajjar with Guest Editor Chris Toensing

In this issue, we reflect on MERIP’s 50-year history of speaking truth to power and evaluate its continuing legacy. We are proud that a scrappy monthly newsletter written by and for activists not only endured, but evolved into Middle East Report, a unique source of news and analysis that features essays informed by rigorous scholarship and detailed field research while remaining committed to a progressive political mission. In its early decades, MERIP provided an important outlet for voices and perspectives marginalized in the academy and mainstream media, including those of scholars, activists and political figures from the region. Launched as MERIP Reports, this first-of-its-kind publication on the Middle East played a critical role in transforming Americans’ knowledge of the region by advancing a critical political economy approach, documenting popular struggles and articulating opposition to the foreign policies of the United States and its regional allies. For this issue, we asked long-time editors, members of the MERIP collective and others to survey and reflect on aspects of MERIP coverage across a range of topics including labor, Palestine, the War on Terror, the Lebanese civil war, the Iranian revolution, women and gender, Arab Americans, culture and poetry. These mini essays offer a guided tour across the MERIP landscape, facilitated by links to related articles, the majority of which are housed on MERIP’s open access website.

Note: All articles are open access.