Gendering in the Middle East edited by Deniz Kandiyoti provides an innovative collection of essays that individually - through a variety of contexts and research fields - assess the importance of gender analysis in deciphering established views on culture, society and politics in the Middle East, and the extent to which gender studies has developed as a discipline to challenge gender ideologies within Middle Eastern society. Yet, in the vast literature of Middle Eastern studies that has emerged in the latter half of the 20th century, what will these "emerging perspectives" contribute to the field?Kandiyoti's collection raises questions on the localised cultural impact of cultural imperialism, and the frames in which scholarship seem to be locked; vis-à-vis post-Orientalist notions of `Other' from Western scholarship, and Islamic critical discourses of imperialism from Middle Eastern scholarship (p.16). Her anthology, rather, breaks this construction and aims to localise research, using `gender analysis as a tool for social criticism' in order to uncover gendered hierarchies within `established views' in Middle Eastern society (p.i).Despite an over-arching struggle to unlock Middle Eastern gender analysis (and women's silenced voices) within the confines of larger cultural and national discourses, Gendering in the Middle East both informs and challenges `established views of culture, society, politics and literary production in the Middle East' (p.i). There is a growing concern to make obvious the invisible gender relations and hierarchies that occupy all aspects of society. The collection gracefully lends a voice to Arab women; a voice that has been documented in order to rewrite a history absent of gender relations and the plight of women.