Fred H. Lawson is Professor of Government at Mills College.  In 2009-10 he was Senior Visiting Fellow at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar.  His publications include Constructing International Relations in the Arab World (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006),  Why Syria Goes to War (Ithaca, NY:  Cornell University Press, 1996) and The Social Origins of Egyptian Expansionism during the Muhammad 'Ali Period (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992).