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Media Arabic will be of immense use to the growing number of Arabic students concerned with the world today, and not - as in times past - with the delicacies of Koranic grammar or Jahiliyya poetry. Many of us have been waiting years for such a book, to complement (as the author intended) Julia Ashtiany's grammar textbook Media Arabic (1993).

Media Arabic is divided into sections on media terms, politics, elections, the military, economics, trade and industry, law and order, and disaster and aid. This non-alphabetical listing - workable because the volume is slim - will be of particular use to beginners still uncomfortable with using an Arabic dictionary. A small section on culture and civil society might have afforded relief from the endless succession of "aggressors", "ballistic missiles", "mudslides" and "deregulation", but that is a counsel of perfection. Media Arabic will be greeted with a sigh of relief from contemporary Arabic studies students and instructors.

Turi Munthe is a fellow of the Royal United Services Institute and Leena Dalasheh is an Arabic language instructor at New York University, US.