Louis Cantori, Ph.D., is Professor of Political Science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He did his graduate work in Political Science and on the Middle East at the University of Chicago and studied Islamic philosophy in the Faculty of Theology, al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt. Dr. Cantori was a Fulbright student in Egypt in 1963-65 and subsequently was visiting professor at the American University in Cairo in 1974-76. In 1969-70 he did fieldwork in Morocco and returned as a Fulbright researcher in 1994-95. He lived seven years in the Middle East and has done research, visited or done consulting activities in Egypt, Morocco, Israel, the Occupied Territories, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan and Iraq.

As a development specialist, Dr. Cantori has been a consultant for US A.I.D. and private companies in the area of water and waste water, roads, and government organization. He is Distinguished Visiting Lecturer on the Middle East at the State Department and has briefed Generals Schwartzkopf and Hoare (Central Command) as well as speaking to Special Operations at Hurlburt Field, 5th Special Forces and the JFK Special Warfare School. Dr. Cantori has been Visiting Professor, U.S.M.A., West Point and Olin Distinguished Professor of National Security Studies, U.S. Air Force Academy. He has also held the Major General Matthew C. Horner Chair of Military Theory, U.S. Marine Corps University. He has a scholarly interest in professional military education.

Dr. Cantori is the author, co-author or editor of four books on the Middle East and on Comparative Politics (e.g. Local Politics and Development in the Middle East) and over forty articles on the Middle East and other subjects. He authored a review article "Civil Society, Liberalism, and the Corporatist Alternative in the Middle East, "in the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin" (July 1997). Dr. Cantori is presently preparing Statism and the Emergence of the Modern Arab State for publication. He is also a founder of The Circle of Tradition and Progress* (London and Washington), which is a group of prominent Western and Muslim intellectuals who share a critical view of modernity. He is also a founding member of the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies, The Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy http://www.islam-democracy.org/, and the Conference Group on the Middle East, an affiliated group of the American Political Science Association http://www.apsanet.org/.

*For a link to an article published in the Middle East Policy Journal, Vol. VII, October 1999, pp. 38-49 by Dr. Anthony T. Sullivan, Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Michigan that explains the founding of The Circle of Tradition and Progress: http://www.mediamonitors.net/sullivan1.html.