Middle Eastern history Books

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Book SynopsisAn indispensable guide to understanding the Israel?Palestine conflict, and how we might yet still find a way out of it. ''Ilan Pappe is the most original, radical and hard-hitting of Israel?s new historians.'' Avi Shlaim, author of Three Worlds The devastation of 7 October 2023 and the horrors that followed astounded the world. But the Israel?Palestine conflict didn?t start on 7 October. It didn?t start in 1967 either, when Israel occupied the West Bank, or in 1948 when the state of Israel was declared. It started in 1882, when the first Zionist settlers arrived in what was then Ottoman Palestine. Ilan Pappe untangles the history of two peoples, now sharing one land. Going back to the founding fathers of Zionism, Pappe expertly takes us through the twists and turns of international policy towards Israel?Palestine, Palestinian resistance to occupation, and the changes taking place in Israel itself.

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Book Synopsis''Blistering'' Sunday Times''Indispensable'' Observer''Fascinating'' The Times''Brilliant'' Peter Frankopan''Revelatory'' Lindsey HilsumA timely and unprecedented examination of how the modern Middle East unravelled, and why it started with the pivotal year of 1979. Shortlisted for the Cundhill History Prize 2020''What happened to us?''For decades, the question has haunted the Arab and Muslim world, heard across Iran and Syria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and in the author''s home country of Lebanon. Was it always so? When did the extremism, intolerance and bloodletting of today displace the region''s cultural promise and diversity?In Black Wave, award-winning journalist and author Kim Ghattas argues that the turning point in the modern history of the Middle East can be located in the toxic confluence of three major events in 1979: the Iranian revolution; the siege of the Ho

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Book SynopsisAN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR''A gripping investigation of Israel''s assassination policy'' Sunday Times''Remarkable'' Observer''Riveting'' Daily Mail''Compelling'' John le CarréWinner of 2018 National Jewish Book AwardRise and Kill First is the definitive book to read on Israel''s military history.From the very beginning of its statehood in 1948, the instinct to take every measure to defend the Jewish people has been hardwired into Israel''s DNA. This is the riveting inside account of the targeted assassinations that have been used countless times, on enemies large and small, sometimes in response to attacks against the Israeli people and sometimes pre-emptively. Rise and Kill First counts their successes, failures and the moral and political price exacted on those who carried out the missions which have shaped the Israeli nation, theTrade ReviewA thrilling narrative of extreme bravery and compromised morality * Economist, Books of the Year 2018 *Ronen Bergman has set out in incontestable detail the history and scale of Israel's use of extrajudicial killing as an instrument of defence and foreign policy. His material is stark and sensational, but he steers a steady course through it ... The result is a compelling read whatever your point of view. * John le Carré *A gripping investigation of Israel's assassination policy * Sunday Times *Riveting...Based on 1,000 interviews and vast numbers of leaked documents, his book often reads like a John le Carre novel. But it took considerable courage for him to publish it. * Daily Mail *A masterpiece! Only Ronen Bergman's extraordinary research could have achieved it * Christopher Andrew, author of 'The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5' *Exciting, sometimes moving and always considered...Not only is Bergman's book a stunning feat of research and a riveting read, it is also testament to the author's personal courage -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times *With remarkable access to officials and reports, Ronen Bergman's revealing book lays bare Mossad's kill operations * Observer *The Israeli government did its best to prevent Bergman from writing this ...fascinating new book about the history of Israeli assassinations, published during Israel's seventieth anniversary year. Rise and Kill First not only sheds light on that most secretive of subjects, Israel's intelligence services, but also has wider significance: how and why a state uses extra-judicial killing, and the consequences of doing so. * TLS *You think the Krays were rough? Try the Mossad. This is an amalgam of the secret and often lethal special operations they carried out over the years. * Daily Express *Terrific ... It's easy to understand why Bergman's book is already a bestseller. It moves at a torrid pace and tells stories that would make Jason Bourne sit up and say 'Wow!' It is smart, thoughtful and balanced. * The New York Times Book Review *An exceptional work, a humane book about an incendiary subject * New York Times *This remarkable account of Israel's targeted-killing programs is the product of nearly eight years of research into what is arguably the most secretive and impenetrable intelligence community in the world. * The New Yorker *Authoritative . . . a chilling portrait * The Washington Post *Well-written and informative, Rise and Kill First is the best book so far written on this dramatic subject * Jewish Chronicle *Fascinating . . . In picturesque and gripping language, making use of careful, often ground-breaking research, Bergman presents a series of incidents from the history of the Mossad's assassination missions * Literary Review *Remarkable * Observer *A gripping investigation of Israel's assassination policy * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisA SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER''A stunning blockbuster'' Robert Fisk''A brilliant tour de force of revisionist scholarship and thrilling storytelling'' Simon Sebag Montefiore''A compelling detective story of the highest order'' Sunday Times''Tom Holland has an enviable gift for summoning up the colour, the individuals and animation of the past'' IndependentIn the 6th century AD, the Near East was divided between two venerable empires: the Persian and the Roman. A hundred years on and one had vanished forever, while the other seemed almost finished. Ruling in their place were the Arabs: an upheaval so profound that it spelt, in effect, the end of the ancient world. In the Shadow of the Sword explores how this came about. Spanning from Constantinople to the Arabian desert, and starring some of the most remarkable rulers who ever lived, he tells a story vivid with drama, hTrade ReviewIt takes courage and intellect to confront such complexity and sensitivity. Written with flamboyant elegance and energetic intensity, Holland delivers a brilliant tour de force of revisionist scholarship and thrilling storytelling with a blood-spattered cast of swashbuckling tyrants, nymphomanaical empresses and visionary prophets... Unputdownable * The Times *A great achievement... A compelling detective story of the highest order, In the Shadow of the Sword is also a dazzlingly colourful journey into the world of late antiquity. Every bit as thrilling a narrative history as Holland's previous works, In the Shadow of the Sword is also a profoundly important book. It makes public and popular what scholarship has been discovering for several decades now; and those discoveries suggest a wholesale revision of where Islam came from and what it is * Sunday Times *Tom Holland is a writer of clarity and expertise, who talks us through this unfamiliar and crowded territory with energy and some dry wit... The emergence of Islam is a notoriously risky subject, so a confident historian who is able to explain where this great religion came from without illusion or dissimulation has us greatly in his debt * Spectator *This is a book of extraordinary richness... Tom Holland has an enviable gift for summoning up the colour, the individuals and animation of the past, without sacrificing factual integrity... He is also a divertingly inventive writer with a wicked wit... This is a history of history as it were... wonderfully hard-hitting analysis, elegantly tied into the unfolding narrative of events, with each religious establishment exposed in all its glory and treacherous realpolitik... a spell-bindingly brilliant multiple portrait of the triumph of monotheism in the ancient world * Independent *Holland's new book traces the process by which the world of the first millennium came to be dominated by one God, three religions and an innumerable succession of emperors -- Dan Jones * Daily Telegraph *It is difficult not to be bedazzled by a cast that includes ulcerated Christian holy men, Zoroastrian priests obsessed with dental hygiene, demonic emperors, barbarians with self-inflicted cranial deformities and Arab ambassadors stinking of camel -- Richard Miles * Financial Times *Sweeping and perceptive. His major achievement is to set out just how uncertain is our grasp on the immediate setting of Muhammad's life, and on the formation of the Koran. At this moment in world history above all, it should be required reading * Professor Sir Fergus Millar *Holland is a restless wanderer across the ancient world, both geographically and intellectually... A dazzling range of characters... Holland is a skilful and energetic narrator, and while he guides us along the more intricate twists and turns of the period, he also keeps our eyes on the bigger story -- Anthony Sattin * Observer *Holland leaves almost no aspect of the traditional story of Islam intact as he charts its rise to global power from the ashes of the Roman and Persian empires -- Bryan Appleyard * Sunday Times *A work of history, trying to tell the truth, as modern historians understand that fraught concept... A gripping, colourful book -- Charles Moore * Daily Telegraph *A handsome volume, tackling an important question from a novel perspective, backed by useful notes and written in an accessible and fluid style -- Michael Scott * Sunday Telegraph *A brave and valuable attempt to train the lens of popular history upon an exceptionally contentious field of study... elegant and entertaining... In the Shadow of the Sword stands as a useful, and sometimes provocative, starting point for anyone interested in approaching the birth of Islam from a historical, rather than devotional, perspective -- Thomas Ashbridge * Literary Review *Elegantly written and refreshingly free from specialist jargon... marshalling its resources with dexterity, it is a veritable tour de force -- Malise Ruthven * Wall Street Journal *Those unwilling to struggle through academic texts have long needed a guide to the story of Islam as it's understood by those with the fullest access to the latest linguistic and archaeological evidence. Now at last in Tom Holland's In the Shadow of the Sword, they finally have it -- David Frum * Daily Beast *A stunning blockbuster -- Robert Fisk * Independent *A compelling detective story of the highest order, In the Shadow of the Sword is also a dazzlingly colourful journey into the world of late antiquity. Every bit as thrilling a narrative history as Holland's previous works, [it] is also a profoundly important book -- Christopher Hart * Sunday Times *Written with flamboyant elegance and energetic intensity, Holland delivers a brilliant tour de force of revisionist scholarship and thrilling storytelling with a bloodspattered cast of swashbuckling tyrants, nymphomaniacal empresses and visionary prophets . . . Unputdownable -- Simon Sebag Montefiore * The Times *

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Book SynopsisA “fascinating and very moving” (Aaron Sorkin, award-winning screenwriter of The West Wing and The Social Network) chronological timeline spanning from Biblical times to today that explores one of the most interesting countries in the world—Israel.Israel. The small strip of arid land is 5,700 miles away but remains a hot-button issue and a thorny topic of debate. But while everyone seems to have a strong opinion about Israel, how many people actually know the facts? Here to fill in the information gap is Israeli American Noa Tishby. But “this is not your Bubbie’s history book” (Bill Maher, host of Real Time with Bill Maher). Instead, offering a fresh, 360-degree view, Tishby brings her “passion, humor, and deep intimacy” (Yossi Klein Halevi, New York Times bestselling author of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor) to the subject, creating an accessible and dynamic portrait of a tiny country of outsized relevance. Through bite-sized chunks of history and deeply personal stories, Tishby chronicles her homeland’s evolution, beginning in Biblical times and moving forward to cover everything from WWI to Israel’s creation to the disputes dividing the country today. Tackling popular misconceptions with an abundance of facts, Tishby provides critical context around headline-generating controversies and offers a clear, intimate account of the richly cultured country of Israel.

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Book Synopsis‘The very grubby coalface of foreign policy … I found the entire book most horribly addictive’ Independent ‘One of the unexpected responses to reading this masterful study is amazement at the efforts the British and French each put into undermining the other’ Spectator A fascinating insight into the untold story of how British-French rivalry drew the battle-lines of the modern Middle East. In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, two men secretly agreed to divide the Middle East between them. Sir Mark Sykes was a visionary politician; François Georges-Picot a diplomat with a grudge. They drew a line in the sand from the Mediterranean to the Persian frontier, and together remade the map of the Middle East, with Britain’s 'mandates' of Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq, and France's in Lebanon and Syria. Over the next thirty years a sordid tale of violence and clandestine political manoeuvring unfolded, told here through a stellar cast of politicians, diplomats, spies and soldiers, including T. E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. Using declassified papers from the British and French archives, James Barr vividly depicts the covert, deadly war of intrigue and espionage between Britain and France to rule the Middle East, and reveals the shocking way in which the French finally got their revenge.Trade Review'With superb research and telling quotations, Barr has skewered the whole shabby story...The convulsion of that fateful line in the sand are still being felt today - not only in the Middle East, but throughout the world' -- Michael Binyon * The Times *'Racy... [Barr] is right to assert that few British readers grasp the ferocity of Anglo-French antagonism in the Levant' -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times *'One of the unexpected responses to reading this masterful study is amazement at the efforts the British and French each put into undermining each other' * The Spectator *'The very grubby coalface of foreign policy...I found the entire book most horribly addictive' * Independent *'Lively and entertaining. He has scoured the diplomatic archives and has come up with a rich hail that brings his narrative to life' * Financial Times *'James Barr's history of imperial machinations in the Middle East offers a revelatory slant on the continuing crisis in that area... an outstanding piece of research and a damning take on what stoked current Middle Eastern woes' * Metro *'James Barr has succeeded better than any author before him in telling the fascinating story of Anglo-French rivalries in the modern Middle East... Outstanding' -- Eugene Rogan, author of 'The Arabs: A History'The book resembles a gripping spy thriller...an expertly researched and authoritative book that is easy to read' * Military Times *'Barr is particularly good at identifying and portraying officials and agents engaged in these tit-for-tat reprisals that blurred the distinction between patriotism and crime' * Literary Review *'Engaging and well-researched... James Barr's lively account provides some quite astounding sketches of bluster, bickering and bravado' * BBC History Magazine *The struggle between Britain and France for mastery of the Middle East between 1914 and the late 1940s, is analysed by James Barr in his excellent new book. It is a complex story of intrigue and skulduggery, which Barr pieces together in a deft, well-written narrative. A journalist by profession, he manages to bring the whole subject alive through a series of well-chosen details and characters' * History Today *'History at its meticulously researched and addictive best' * Dublin Review of Books *

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Book Synopsis'Beautifully written and deeply researched' The Observer Upon victory in 1945, Britain still dominated the Middle East. But her motives for wanting to dominate this crossroads between Europe, Asia and Africa were changing. Where ‘imperial security’ – control of the route to India – had once been paramount, now oil was an increasingly important factor. So, too, was prestige. Ironically, the very end of empire made control of the Middle East precious in itself: on it hung Britain’s claim to be a great power. Unable to withstand Arab and Jewish nationalism, within a generation the British were gone. But that is not the full story. What ultimately sped Britain on her way was the uncompromising attitude of the United States, which was determined to displace the British in the Middle East. Using newly declassified records and long-forgotten memoirs, including the diaries of aTrade Review'A masterful account of Anglo-American rivalries that shaped the modern Middle East after WWII—brilliant storytelling with a rich cast of characters, Lords of the Desert is irresistible reading.' -- Eugene Rogan, author of The Fall of the Ottomans'With its oil and its waterways, the Middle East was and remains a first step for any rising world power, and also the final trap for empires on the decline. In this lively page-turner, Barr unearths the obscure history of our disastrous engagement with the Middle East today—and of our own imperial decline.' -- Elizabeth F. Thompson, Mohamed S. Farsi Chair of Islamic Peace, American University'Many of the events in this book will be familiar, but instead of presenting them from the more usual perspectives of the Cold war confrontation between the US and Russia, or Imperial withdrawal, James Barr considers them instead from the angle of US-British rivalry. This is refreshing, but it is perhaps also closer to the angle from which many contemporaries would have considered the Suez canal crisis of 1956 or the coup that removed Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953, for example. This book is therefore not just an excellent, lively account of salient events in this period in the history of the Middle East; it also opens up some new ways to think about them.' -- Michael Axworthy, author of A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind'In this compelling new book, James Barr recalls a now forgotten story of British-American competition for power in the Middle East during and after their victory in the Second World War. This is essential, gripping history with major relevance for those who wish to understand that tortured region today.' -- Nicholas Burns, Professor, Harvard University and former Under Secretary of State'High adventure and covert action meet in this account of a momentous power shift that decisively shaped today’s world. Lords of the Desert reshapes our understanding of the modern Middle East—and also helps explain how the United States became a global power.' -- Stephen Kinzer, author of All the Shah’s Men and Overthrow'James Barr lifts the curtain on British plotting and intrigue in the Middle East. A wonderful raconteur, Barr brings to life the characters whose schemes and miscalculations brought an end to Britain as a great power. Meticulously researched, Lords of the Desert provides ample evidence as to why people in Middle Eastern countries remain so suspicious of Western intentions. A superb book.' -- Emma Sky, author of The Unraveling'An essential book for understanding the modern Middle East—and a thrilling read to boot.' -- Alex von Tunzelmann, author of Blood and Sand'The middle decades of the twentieth century were ground zero for U.S. involvement in the modern Middle East. In this deeply researched and marvelously readable account, James Barr explains how Americans’ entry into the region was achieved at the expense of the main previous western power there, Great Britain. By illuminating this crucial moment of imperial transition, Barr provides vital background for understanding the turbulent Middle East-U.S. relationship that has evolved since.' -- Hugh Wilford, author of America’s Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East'Excellent … When Mr Barr comes to describe the 1953 coup against Mosaddegh his book reads like a page-turning spy thriller.' -- Bartle Bull * Wall Street Journal *'A beautifully written and bracing corrective to the idea that the US and UK were friendly partners in the Middle East.' -- John Bew * New Statesman *'Thoroughly researched and splendidly readable.' -- Lucy Beckett * TLS *'If you enjoy reading about international politics and espionage, you will love this book.' -- Matthew Elliott * City AM *'Mr Barr’s canvas is large, and he daubs it with colour and human interest.' * The Economist *'A rattling good read of a familiar story presented from an altogether different and fascinating, perspective.' -- Ali Ansari * History Today *'A brilliantly written account that serves as a useful reminder that alliances and history can be deceptive' -- Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads‘James Barr... has written another riveting history, masterfully arrayed and engagingly written. Like a good conversation, it is full of great anecdotes that even those who know this story might have missed.’ * Financial Times *

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Book SynopsisRobert Fisk’s bestselling eyewitness account of the events that have shaped the Middle East is alive with vivid reporting and incisive historical analysis. The history of the Middle East is an epic story of tragedy, betrayal and world-shaking events. It is a story that Robert Fisk has been reporting for over thirty years. His masterful narrative spans the most volatile regions of the Middle East, chronicling with both rage and compassion the death by deceit of tens of thousands of Muslims, Christians and Jews. Robert Fisk’s remarkable history is also the tale of a journalist at war – learning of the 9/11 attacks while aboard a passenger jet, reporting from a bombed-out Baghdad, interviewing Osama bin Laden – and of the courage and frustration of a life spent writing the first draft of history.Trade Review‘For sheer bravery, dazzling prose, three interviews with Osama bin Laden and an unrivalled collection of awards won over three decades, there is nobody to match Robert Fisk. This book is his testament.’ Sunday Times ‘Brilliant…powerfully written.’ Independent on Sunday ‘A remarkable book.’ New Statesman ‘Fisk writes with a marvellous resource of image and language. His investigative reporting is lethally painstaking.’ Neal Ascherson, Independent ‘His forte is straight reporting, such as his three interviews with Osama bin Laden. At least as good are his meetings with Saddam Hussein, Khomeini and Sadeq Khalkhali, the hanging judge of the Iranian revolution, and his close-ups of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the launch of Saddam's war against Iran, an ambush by Islamists of an Algerian police patrol, and a lift into trouble in an Apache attack helicopter on the Iraq/Turkey border.’ Guardian ‘A mammoth and magisterial work, the definitive summation of what has gone wrong in the West’s foreign policies towards Arabia.’ Scottish Sunday Herald ‘A stimulating and absorbing book, by a man who speaks Arabic, who has known the region better than most, and has met the leading players, from bin Laden to Ahmad Chalabi. A formidable production.’ New York Times ‘Full of furious, vivid and highly personalised writing…An important book by an intrepid and talented writer.’ Literary Review ‘Vivid, graphic, intense and very personal…this is a book of unquestionable importance.’ Washington Post

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Book SynopsisRenowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe's groundbreaking work on the formation of the State of Israel. 'Along with the late Edward Said, Ilan Pappe is the most eloquent writer of Palestinian history.' NEW STATESMAN Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called 'ethnic cleansing'. Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. Indispensable for anyone interested in the current crisis in the Middle East. *** 'Ilan Pappe is Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian.' JOHN PILGER 'Pappe has opened up an important new line of inquiry into the vast and fateful subject of the Palestinian refugees. His book is rewarding in other ways. It has at times an elegiac, even sentimental, character, recalling the lost, obliterated life of the Palestinian Arabs and imagining or regretting what Pappe believes could have been a better land of Palestine.' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT 'A major intervention in an argument that will, and must, continue. There's no hope of lasting Middle East peace while the ghosts of 1948 still walk.' INDEPENDENTTrade Review'A major intervention in an argument that will, and must, continue. There's no hope of lasting Middle East peace while the ghosts of 1948 still walk.' * Independent *'Along with the late Edward Said, Ilan Pappe is the most eloquent writer of Palestinian history.' * New Statesman *'Pappe has opened up an important new line of inquiry into the vast and fateful subject of the Palestinian refugees. His book is rewarding in other ways. It has at times an elegiac, even sentimental, character, recalling the lost, obliterated life of the Palestinian Arabs and imagining or regretting what Pappe believes could have been a better land of Palestine.' * Times Literary Supplement *'Ilan Pappe is Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian.' * John Pilger - director of The War on Democracy and author of Freedom Next Time *'Superb account of how, and why, Palestinians were driven out of their homes.' * Socialist Review *'Pappe’s book is an essential read for anyone trying to understand the politics and history of the Middle East.' * Frontline Magazine (an Independent Marxist review from Scotland) *'Leading Israeli historian Ilan Pappe delves into his country's bloodied past in search of answers in the present.' * Morning Star *'Pappe is one of the brave few voices to stand up and be counted in the oppressive atmosphere of Israeli society. Pappe's book is a searing account of the horrific brutality perpetrated during the birth of the state of Israel.' * Morning Star *'Pappe is well positioned to lob a grenade such as this one into the twin worlds of Middle Eastern studies and politics. Pappe's book should shock and shame the academic world' * Arab Banker *'Pappe's ethical clarity and humane vision permeate The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine... Given the meticulous research and compelling moral imperative embodied in The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Zionism itself may be in trouble.' * Race and Class *'Pappe offers a scorching indictment of Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people in The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.' * Metro *'A bold expose of Israel's purge of its Arab population in the early years of its existence. It should be read by anyone wanting to grasp the seemingly unfathomable background to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Pappe himself should be supported and applauded.' * Morning Star *'Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is a vital contribution to the scholarship from these new historians… Pappe forever puts to rest any doubt that Palestinians were systematically and brutally expelled from their homeland.' * Against the Current (An independent socialist organisation) *'Pappe’s book will command attention.' * Washington Report on Middle East Affairs *'Superb account of how, and why, Palestinians were driven out of their homes. Pappe explains why there can be no peace until this crime has been acknowledged and redressed.' * Scottish Review *'The organization of the material in this book leaves almost nothing to be desired. The twelve sections substantially challenge and considerably undermine the ostensibly convincing Israeli discourse on the refugees question and the 1984 events.' * Arab Studies Quarterly *'Shocking, telling and illuminating.' * Emel *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations, Maps and Tables Acknowledgements Preface 1. An 'Alleged' Ethnic Cleansing? 2. The Drive for an Exclusively Jewish State 3. Partition and Destruction: UN Resolution 181 and its Impact 4. Finalising a Master Plan 5. The Blueprint for Ethnic Cleansing: Plan Dalet 6. The Phony War and the Real War over Palestine: May 1948 7. The Escalation of the Cleansing Operations: June--September 1948 8. Completing the Job: October 1948--January 1949 9. Occupation and its Ugly Faces 10. The Memoricide of the Nakba 11. Nakba Denial and the 'Peace Process' 12. Fortress Israel Epilogue Endnotes Chronology Maps and Tables Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn 1498 a young captain sailed from Portugal, circumnavigated Africa, crossed the Indian Ocean, and discovered the sea route to the Indies, opening up access to the fabled wealth of the East. It was the longest voyage known to history; the ships were pushed to their limits, their crews were racked by storms and devastated by disease. However, the greatest enemy was neither nature nor the fear of venturing into unknown worlds. With blood-red Crusader crosses emblazoned on their sails, the explorers arrived in the heart of the Muslim East at a time when the old hostilities between Christianity and Islam had intensified. In two voyages that spanned six years, Vasco da Gama would fight a running sea battle that would ultimately change the fate of three continents. The Last Crusade is an epic tale of spies, intrigue, and treachery; of bravado, brinkmanship, and confused - often comical collisions - between cultures encountering one another for the first time. With the world once again tipping back East, The Last Crusade offers a key to understanding age-old religious and cultural rivalries resurgent today.Trade ReviewA stirringly epic book...Gama's incident-rich voyage [is a] thrilling narrative * Sunday Times *This excellent book tells the story [of Vasco da Gama] with the swagger and excitement it deserves * Spectator *Lively and ambitious... Cliff has a novelist's gift for depicting character... He brings sixteenth-century Portugal in all its splendor and squalor pungently to life * New York Times, 'Notable Books of the Year' 2011 *

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Book SynopsisSituated at the crossroads of three continents, the Middle East has confounded the ambition of conquerors and peacemakers alike. Christianity, Judaism and Islam all had their genesis in the region but with them came not just civilisation and religion but also some of the great struggles of history. A Short History of the Middle East makes sense of the shifting sands of Middle Eastern History, beginning with the early cultures of the area and moving on to the Roman and Persian Empires; the growth of Christianity; the rise of Islam; the invasions from the east; Genghis Khan's Mongol hordes; the Ottoman Turks and the rise of radicalism in the modern world symbolised by Islamic State.

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Book SynopsisThe town of Bethlehem carries so many layers of meaning--some ancient, some mythical, some religious--that it feels like an unreal city, even to the people who call it home. Today, the city is hemmed in by a wall and surrounded by forty-one Israeli settlements and hostile settlers and soldiers. The population is undergoing such enormous strains it is close to falling apart. Any town with an eleven-thousand-year history has to be robust, but Bethlehem may soon go the way of Salonica or Constantinople: the physical site might survive, but the long thread winding back to the ancient past will have snapped, and the city risks losing everything that makes it unique.Still, for many, Bethlehem remains the little town of the Christmas song. Nicholas Blincoe will tell the history of the famous little town, through the visceral experience of living there, taking readers through its stone streets and desert wadis, its monasteries, aqueducts and orchards, showing the city from every angTrade ReviewA lovely personal adventure through the history of Bethlehem from its origins up to the present day. Blincoe captures the continuities and contradictions, the myths and the history of one of the world's most famous towns with real flair * PETER FRANKOPAN, author of Silk Roads *[Bethlehem] brings within reach 11,000 years of history, centering on the beloved town's unique place in the world. Blincoe's love of Bethlehem is compelling, even as he does not shy away from the complexities of its chronicle * PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER *[Bethlehem] illuminates both the past and the present of the Middle East with countless instances of fantastic achievement and equally terrible human folly * YOTAM OTTOLENGHI, co-author of Jerusalem *A book by a talented chronicler who lovingly paints the city's many contradictions and bewildering complexity. Highly readable and informative, it leaves the reader not only with a profound admiration for this city of extremes and its resilient inhabitants who have endured such hardships, but also with a deep lament at the current suffering of the people of Bethlehem * RAJA SHEHADEH , author of Where the Line Is Drawn *An exuberant and erudite journey into the real Bethlehem. Each page leads the reader down new and fascinating tangents of history, cuisine, and personal anecdote, each time somehow finding its way back to Bethlehem and its habit of standing at the centre of world affairs * JACOB NORRIS, author of Land of Progress: Palestine in the Age of Colonial *Majestic . . . [a] book of many marvellous things -- John Lewis-Stempel * S magazine *A thorough and entertaining account -- Tibor Fischer * Standpoint *Masterful -- Emma Williams * Spectator *Blincoe's thoroughness is nothing short of impressive . . . Blincoe offers a biography so vividly imagined that I jumped when my phone buzzed, interrupting my reverie of Nabatean temples . . . The reward is in the lush prose and personal accounts. Blincoe is a joyful writer, well suited to the task of evoking place with passages . . . transporting the reader with mouthwatering specificity. Blincoe handles his own narratives of Bethlehem delicately, like a horticulturist pruning beloved orchids, following its many iterations through the rise and fall of civilizations . . . More than anything, his love for the place leaps off the page; for all its chronicling of incursions and defeat, this is ultimately a book about hope -- Hala Alyan * The New York Times Book Review *Part history, part travelogue and memoir, it reads like an extended love letter to a place on the brink . . . a highly discursive, frequently amusing, often tragic but always accessible history * Guardian *Blincoe proves an erudite and evocative guide to a city whose place in biblical history has proved to be more of a curse than a blessing -- John Preston * Mail on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisThe story of how a group of warriors, driven by faith, greed and wanderlust, carved out new Christian-ruled states in the Middle East is one of the most extraordinary of all epics. The crusaders'' stunning initial success started a sequence of great Crusades, each with its own story, that fundamentally shaped the Christian and Muslim worlds for two centuries, until the last Crusader castles were finally expunged. The energy and commitment that sent army after army into the eastern Mediterranean also led to the invasion and conversion of Central and Baltic Europe, Spain, Portugal, the destruction of the Cathars in Provence and the settlement of America. Told with great verve and authority, God''s War is the definitive account of a fascinating but also horrifying story.We are still living with the images and legends of the crusadesTyerman tells us how the Church set about preaching the crusades, exploiting the perennial pessimism and guilt of the European nobility of the Middle Ages. He shows how crusading ideology penetrated the religious sensibility of the period, as well as its secular fiction and poetryOf all the modern histories of the crusades it is the shrewdest, the most reliable and the most complete.' The Spectator

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Book SynopsisCutting through the headlines and spin, this is the first book to give us a true picture of the reality on the ground, through the words of the people there - from commanders to intelligence officers, army doctors to ordinary soldiers. Providing eye-witness accounts that contradict the official stories and figures, they give a chilling picture of the deceit, stupidity, wishful thinking, lack of forward planning and total intellectual failure of those behind the invasion. The result is an extraordinary new insight into the plight of ordinary soldiers doing nightmarish jobs, and the real nature of the fighting in Iraq.

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Book SynopsisIn Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science, Jim al-Khalili celebrates the forgotten pioneers who helped shape our understanding of the world. For over 700 years the international language of science was Arabic. Surveying the golden age of Arabic science, Jim Al-Khalili reintroduces such figures as the Iraqi physicist Ibn al-Haytham, who practised the modern scientific method over half a century before Bacon; al-Khwarizmi, the greatest mathematician of the medieval world; and Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, a Persian polymath to rival Leonardo da Vinci. ''Jim Al-Khalili has a passion for bringing to a wider audience not just the facts of science but its history ... Just as the legacy of Copernicus and Darwin belongs to all of us, so does that of Ibn Sina and Ibn al-Haytham''  Independent ''He has brought a great story out of the shadows''   Literary Review ''His command of Arabic and mathemaTrade ReviewBrings alive the bubbling invention and delighted curiosity of the Islamic world ... his command of Arabic mathematical physics invests his story with sympathy as well as authority -- Tim Radford * Guardian *A fascinating and user-friendly guide to this whole scientific movement -- Noel Malcolm * Seven, Sunday Telegraph *Jim Al-Khalili has a passion for bringing to a wider audience not just the facts of science but its history ... Just as the legacy of Copernicus and Darwin belongs to all of us, so does that of Ibn Sina and Ibn al-Haytham. To think otherwise, as this book so powerfully reveals, is to do disservice to the tradition to which they belong -- Kenan Malik * Independent *Spry, informative and timely ... Al-Khalili takes the reader through a brisk survey of the highlights of the period -- Stuart Kelly * Scotland on Sunday *A fascinating introduction to a neglected area. His approachable style and ability to distil extensive knowledge into simple narrative makes Pathfinders an absorbing read -- Siobhan Murphy * Metro *Enjoyable and informative ... provides ample evidence for the compatibility of Islam and science -- Sameer Rahim * Daily Telegraph *He has brought a great story out of the shadows * Literary Review *This captivating book is a timely reminder of the debt owed by the West to the intellectual achievements of Arab, Persian and Muslim scholars * The Times *

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Book SynopsisThe definitive history of the Middle East, now updated in its fifth edition''The best overall survey of the politics, regional rivalries and economics of the contemporary Arab world'' Washington PostOver the centuries the Middle East has confounded the dreams of conquerors and peacemakers alike. This now-classic book follows the historic struggles of the region over the last two hundred years, from Napoleon''s assault on Egypt, through the slow decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire, to the painful emergence of modern nations. It is now fully updated with extensive new material examining recent developments including the aftermaths of the ''Arab Spring'', the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict and the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars.''An excellent political overview'' Guardian

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAn impressive exploration of Iran's development since 1979 into an unpredictable pseudo-democracy ... [a] calm and literate portrait of the Islamic Republic * Guardian *If you were to read only one book on present-day Iran you could not do better than this ... Axworthy revokes the sound and fury of the revolution itself -- Ervand Abrahamian * Times Higher Education *Balances scholarly precision with narrative flair ... Axworthy does the best job so far of describing the Iran-Iraq war ... Axworthy's analytical approach helps him demystify a revolutionary regime that has needed to feed off myths. He revisits, and convincingly reinterprets, defining moments of the Islamic republic ... [with] scholarly rigour and first-class analysis. Anyone interested in this most complex of revolutions would do well to read [this book] * Economist *Packed with gobbets of information and policy advice on how to deal with Iran * Telegraph *[A] meticulously fair and scholarly work ... passages from Iranian authors little known in the west as well as references to both popular and arthouse cinema bring depth [and] richness ... moving and vivid ... a very fine work that deserves to be read by anyone interested in the Middle East -- Jason Burke * Observer *Axworthy is a true Iranophile, learned in history and literature ancient and modern ... [A] subtle, lucid, and well-proportioned history ... his method casts theocracy in a refreshingly cold light, and embosses the Islamic Republic's well-established subordination of faith to power * Spectator *In this lucid, nicely written and well-paced work, Michael Axworthy provides a compelling overview of contemporary Iran and its relations with the outside world ... [Axworthy's] perspective is far more persuasive, and interesting, than the neocon line that has dominated the Iran debate * Independent *

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Book SynopsisPity the Nation ranks among the classic accounts of war in our time, both as historical document and as an eyewitness testament to human savagery. Written by one of Britain''s foremost journalists, this remarkable book combines political analysis and war reporting in an unprecedented way: it is an epic account of the Lebanon conflict by an author who has personally witnessed the carnage of Beirut for over a decade. Fisk''s book recounts the details of a terrible war but it also tells a story of betrayal and illusion, of Western blindness that had led inevitably to political and military catastrophe.Updated and revised, Fisk''s book gives us a further insight into this troubled part of the world.''Robert Fisk is one of the outstanding reporters of this generation. As a war correpondent he is unrivalled.''Edward Mortimer, Financial TimesTrade ReviewReview from previous edition Robert Fisk is one of the outstanding reporters of this generation. As a war correspondent he is unrivalled. * Edward Mortimer, Financial Times *Overall Fisk makes enthralling reading, and his account of modern Lebanon stands out as the most interesting book on the war in recent years. * Amanda Mitchison, Sunday Correspondent *Robert Fisk's enormous book about Lebanon's desperate travails is one of the most distinguished in recent times, as well as one of the most anguished and hard-bitten ... Fisk's reportage has a power which one expects but so often does not get from journalists. His account of the 1982 Israeli invasion is the best that has been published. * Edward Said, Independent on Sunday *a truly tremendous book. * Time Out *a hugely and immensely moving book. * New Statesman and Society *a devastating witness to the failure of politics to guard mankind against itself. * Simon Jenkins, Sunday Times *the sheer accumulation of eye-witness reports has a sort of unstoppable power to convince. * Patrick Seale, Observer *Robert Fisk's poetically written Pity the Nation not only covers his experience of the war, but also digs for the heart of Lebanon. * Jeremy Atiyah, Sunday Telegraph *Table of Contents(TO BE CONFIRMED)

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Book SynopsisThe ancient Near East is known as the cradle of civilization - and for good reason. Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia were home to an extraordinarily rich and successful culture. Indeed, it was a time and place of earth-shaking changes for humankind: the beginnings of writing and law, kingship and bureaucracy, diplomacy and state-sponsored warfare, mathematics and literature.This Very Short Introduction offers a fascinating account of this momentous time in human history. The three thousand years covered here - from around 3500 BCE, with the founding of the first Mesopotamian cities, to the conquest of the Near East by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE-represent a period of incredible innovation, from the invention of the wheel and the plow, to early achievements in astronomy, law, and diplomacy. As historian Amanda Podany explores this era, she overturns the popular image of the ancient world as a primitive, violent place. We discover that women had many rights and freedoms: they could own property, run businesses, and represent themselves in court. Diplomats traveled between the capital cities of major powers ensuring peace and friendship between the kings. Scribes and scholars studied the stars and could predict eclipses and the movements of the planets.Every chapter introduces the reader to a particular moment in ancient Near Eastern history, illuminating such aspects as trade, religion, diplomacy, law, warfare, kingship, and agriculture. Each discussion focuses on evidence provided in two or three cuneiform texts from that time. These documents, the cities in which they were found, the people and gods named in them, the events they recount or reflect, all provide vivid testimony of the era in which they were written. About the Series:Oxford''s Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewThe book is a short, comprehensive and accessible way to first get in touch with a new subject...[It] can be useful for readers who do not know anything about the aforementioned region and its history, such as first term students. * Bibliotheca Orientalis *Table of ContentsList of illustrations ; Note on translations ; Acknowledgments ; 1 Archaeology and environment ; 2 The beginning of cities, 3600-2900 BCE ; 3 The Early Dynastic period, 2900-2340 BCE ; 4 The Akkadian empire, 2334-2112 BCE ; 5 The Third Dynasty of Ur, 2112-2026 BCE ; 6 The old Assyrian colonies, 1950-1740 BCE ; 7. The Old Babylonian period, 2017-1595 BCE ; 8. The Late Bronze Age, 1595-1155 BCE ; 9. The Neo-Assyrian empire, 972-612 BCE ; 10. The Neo-Babylonian empire, 612-539 BCE ; Chronology ; References ; Further reading ; Index

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Book SynopsisSexual desire has long played a key role in Western judgments about the value of Arab civilization. This title reveals the history of how Arabs represented their own sexual desires. It assembles a compendium of Arabic writing to chart the changes in Arab sexual attitudes and their links to Arab notions of cultural heritage and civilization.Trade Review"A pioneering work on a very timely yet frustratingly neglected topic.... I know of no other study that can even begin to compare with the detail and scope of [this] work." - Khaled El-Rouayheb, Middle East Report "In Desiring Arabs, Edward Said's disciple Joseph A. Massad corroborates his mentor's thesis that orientalist writing was racist and dehumanizing.... Massad brilliantly goes on to trace the legacy of this racist, internalized, orientalist discourse up to the present." - Financial Times"

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Book SynopsisGreat Britain ruled Palestine from 1917 to 1948. The British presence replaced 500 years of Turkish control and led to the State of Israel, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1998. The British brought Palestine into the twentieth century. When they arrived the country lay in a Levantine nirvana; by the time they left it had become the arena for one of the century''s major international conflicts. Among the personalities who shape this narrative are Lawrence of Arabia, Winston Churchill, the archaeologist Flinders Petrie, King Feisal, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion. One momentous consequence of these 30 years was that the Jewish population increased by a factor of ten.Trade ReviewWonderfully readable and humane * INDEPENDENT *New and remarkable ... this excellent book * SUNDAY TIMES *Topicality is never an issue where Israel and the Palestinians are concerned. The arguments--not to mention bloodshed--over Jewish and Muslim nationhood and land rights have been going on for centuries and, whatever the best intentions of the current peace process, will probably go on for centuries to come. Both parties fanatically believe they have an inalienable historical right to statehood on the land in question and both regard Jerusalem as a holy City. As befits the disenfranchised, the Palestinians are slightly more open to a negotiated settlement, but the Israelis remain intransigent about handing over any but the most inhospitable of scrubland and the impasse remains. In the battle between the bullets and the ballot box, the bullets are winning hands down. Tom Segev is one of Israel's most notable historians and journalists--one of the few to strive for any sense of objectivity in his writings--so a new book by him is always worth waiting for. One Palestine, Complete is a detailed account of Palestine under British rule from 1917-48, the critical period in the modern history of the region that lead up to the creation of the state of Israel. Segev begins by carefully detailing Britain's well-known inconsistencies in dealing with both the Jews and the Arabs, both of whom it had appeared to promise if not the world, at least the country after independence was granted and goes on to make a convincing case that because Palestine fell into the category of an emotional rather than self-interested colonial possession, the Brits hoped the situation would unwind to everyone's mutual advantage. Where Segev departs from the historical norm is in his assertions that whatever the British may have said to the Palestinians their actions were uncompromisingly pro-Zionist from the off. This, he claims, was done out of the mistaken, anti-Semitic belief that the Jews controlled business and turned the wheels of history--in other words they were one of us--rather than a recognition of the rightness of their cause. Be this as it may, it is at best a partial explanation. Prior to the Second World War, Britain was on the verge of handing over Palestine to the Arabs and Segev completely downplays the impact of Western war guilt over the Holocaust that led to a huge growth in support for an independent Israeli state at the expense of Palestinian rights. Even so, One Palestine, Complete offers a thoughtful and dramatic account of the evolution of two nationalist movements that seem destined never to be reconciled. With a past like this, what hope is there for the future? * John Crace, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW *

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Book Synopsis''An outstanding history ... one of the best writers on the First World War'' Simon Sebag MontefioreShortlisted for the Duke of Westminster Medal for Military LiteratureThe Ottoman Endgame is the first, and definitive, single-volume history of the Ottoman empire''s agonising war for survival. Beginning with Italy''s invasion of Ottoman Tripoli in September 1911, the Empire was in a permanent state of emergency, with hardly a frontier not under direct threat. Assailed by enemies on all sides, the Empire-which had for generations been assumed to be a rotten shell-proved to be strikingly resilient, beating off major attacks at Gallipoli and in Mesopotamia before finally being brought down in the general ruin of the Central Powers in 1918. As the Europeans planned to partition all its lands between them and with even Istanbul seemingly helpless in the face of the triumphant Entente, an absolutely unexpected entity emerged: modern TTrade ReviewThere are many histories of World War One; few are as important or as readable as this one -- Walter Russell MeadIt is an enormous story, and McMeekin is a worthy chronicler of it ... The Ottoman Endgame is the most satisfactory and thought-through of the recent books on the subject that I have seen -- Norman StoneA wry, delightful book, which fills in a neglected face of the war and traces the emergence of the modern Middle East -- Geoffrey WawroA tour de force -- Philip ManselMasterful and sympathetic ... superb -- Charles King * Literary Review *Original and passionately written * Economist *A marvellous exposition of the historian's art -- Christopher de Bellaigue * Guardian *This readable, much-praised and opinionated work chronicles the Ottomans' entry into the war on Germany's side, its eventual defeat and its final dismemberment -- Gerard Russell * The Times *A well-timed, well-researched exploration of the empire whose dissolution continues to complicate making sense of the contemporary Middle East. Herein are explanations of how modern Turkey, Iraq, and Syria came to be, as well as how the division of the rest of the region affected its future. Scholars and practitioners alike will benefit from reading it -- Henry Kissinger

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Book SynopsisTouraj Daryaee is Maseeh Chair in Persian Studies & Culture and the Director of the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies at the University of California, Irvine. He works on the history of ancient and early medieval Iran and is the editor of the International Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Plates Map of the Sasanian Empire Sasanian Family Tree Prolegomena 1. The Political History of Iran and an-Iran 2. The Society of Iranshahr 3. Religions of the Empire: Zoroastrians, Manichaeans, Jews and Christians 4. Languages and Textual Remains of the Citizens 5. The Economy and Administration of Iranshahr Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book discusses some of the most urgent current debates over the study, commemoration, and politicization of the Holocaust through key critical perspectives. Omer Bartov adeptly assesses the tensions between Holocaust and genocide studies, which have repeatedly both enriched and clashed with each other, whilst convincingly arguing for the importance of local history and individual testimony in grasping the nature of mass murder. He goes on to critically examine how legal discourse has served to both uncover and deny individual and national complicity. Genocide, the Holocaust and Israel-Palestine outlines how first-person histories provide a better understanding of events otherwise perceived as inexplicable and, lastly, draws on the author's own personal trajectory to consider links between the fate of Jews in World War II and the plight of Palestinians during and in the aftermath of the establishment of the state of Israel. Bartov demonstrates that these five perspectives, Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction Part I Writing Atrocity 1. Historical Uniqueness and Integrated History 2. Eastern Europe as the Site of Genocide Part II Local History 3. Reconstructing Genocide on the Local Level 4. Testimonies as Historical Documents Part III Justice and Denial 5. The Holocaust in the Courtroom 6. Memory Laws as a Tool of Forgetting Part IV First Person Histories 7. H. G. Adler’s (Un)Bildungsroman 8. Leaving the Shtetl to Change the World Part V When Memory Comes 9. Return and Displacement in Israel-Palestine 10. My Twisted Path to Auschwitz, and Back 11. Building a Future by Telling the Past Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe first biography in more than a generation of the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the state of Israel.Drawing extensively on his diaries as well as his published works, this intellectual biographical follows Herzl's transformation from a private person into the founder and leader of a political movement which made the quest for a Jewish state into a player in international politics. Contrary to the conventional view which saw the Dreyfus affair as the trigger for Herzl's loss of belief in the promise of Jewish emancipation, Avineri shows how it was the political crisis of the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg Empire, torn apart by contending national movements, which convinced Herzl of the need for a Jewish polity.In response to the wide resonance for his 1896 THE JEWISH STATE, Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, which established the World Zionist Organization with its representative and elected institutions; this in turn became the foundation for Israel's democratic political system. In his efforts to gain international support for a Jewish state, Herzl met with the Ottoman Sultan, the German Emperor Wilhelm II, Pope Pius X, British, Russian and German ministers, as well as an enormous number of other government and public opinion leaders of most European countries. By the time of his early death in 1904 at the age of 44, Herzl succeeded in putting Zionism on the map of world politics, no longer an esoteric idea held by a small group of Jewish intellectuals in Eastern Europe.Trade ReviewTurning the idea of Jewish nationhood into an organised movement was Herzl's work of genius, which is expounded by Avineri with scholarship, sensitivity and wisdom. -- Oliver Kamm * The JC.COM *How Herzl conjured up the idea of a Jewish state out of the air is the subject of this book. It is a political biography; of Herzl's family life, his loves and his hatreds we learn little. With almost nothing but his will, he wrote, cajoled, talked and organised Zionism into existence. Between 1895 and 1897, in two short years, he provided the movement with its key text (Der Judenstaat), its destination (Palestine) and its organisational birth (the first Zionist Congress in Basle). Then he hawed his ideas around the leaders of Europe, to see if he could make a reality from the dream. These unlikely peregrinations are captured perfectly by Avineri. Without them there would have been no Israel. -- David Aaronovitch * THE TIMES *The great strength of Avineri's immensely readable biography is to deliver Herzl in all his tortured complexity and - something not always given its due - the philosophical clarity of his diagnosis of what had befallen the Jews in the modern age and what might be done about their predicament. He had the beard of a poet but a brain for realpolitik. As one might expect from Avineri, who is first and foremost a powerful historian of political thought, this is the most chewily cogent account yet of Herzl the political thinker and doer. -- Simon Schama * FINANCIAL TIMES *What...Shlomo Avineri, a professor of political sciences at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, offers is a different perspective on Herzl's life. Professor Avineri largely relies on Herzl's own writings, especially his obsessively written diary, rather than so much on secondary sources as many other books do. This device has the advantage of explaining Herzl's thoughts, as well as his actions. -- Alistair Dawber * THE INDEPENDENT *It was Austrian politics, not a French miscarriage of justice [the Dreyfuss case], which moved Herzl towards Jewish separatism, Avineri explains, with a rather more complex story than the one the professor tells us is taught to Israeli schoolchildren. Political liberalism had ended official anti-Jewish discrimination in Austria and widened the franchise; but, to the horror of liberals like Herzl, anti-Semitic demagogues were elected. It seemed that the more democratic Austrian society was, the more anti-Semitic it became. -- Jad Adams * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *Magnificent -- Daniel Johnson * STANDPOINT *This Herzl remains a charismatic figure whose story is a romance. And so, in some measure, it should be, because that is how Herzl functioned and why he succeeded. He combined Disraeli's charm and political genius, Marx's analytical insight, and the towering authority of his people's lawgiver, Moses. -- Bernard Wasserstein * THE TABLET *In this book Avineri has reclaimed Herzl from the propagandists. -- Colin Shindler * HISTORY TODAY *Herzl [is telling] the story of Zionism from the beginning, one of the strangest, most romantic, most bewildering episodes in modern history, and to this day one of the most bitterly contentious. -- Geoffrey Wheatcroft * THE SPECTATOR *Herzl is an excellent biography of a great man and as such long overdue. -- Lord Mitchell * THE HOUSE *What Avineri gives us is a fine-grained and tender portrait of the Hungarian-born Herzl as a feverish romantic, dodgy dramatist, prolific writer and political organizer, a vibrant man whose energy and devotion to finding a national solution for a Jewish state were palpable and exhausting. -- Duncan Kelly * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *Avineri rightly sums up Herzl's work as a 'glorious failure that produced impressive results'. It is Avineri's understanding of the exigencies and difficulties of politics for a mere private individual, without money or official status that makes this book well worth reading. * ANGLO-ISRAEL ASSOCIATION *

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Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328) of Damascus was one of the most prominent and controversial religious scholars of medieval Islam. He called for jihad against the Mongol invaders of Syria, appealed to the foundational sources of Islam for reform, and battled against religious innovation. Today, he inspires such diverse movements as Global Salafism, Islamic revivalism and modernism, and violent jihadism. This volume synthesizes the latest research, discusses many little-known aspects of Ibn Taymiyya’s thought, and highlights the religious utilitarianism that pervades his activism, ethics, and theology.

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Book SynopsisThe Story of Israel is an illuminating book that explores the nation's history. Seventy years after Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948, the dramatic events before and since this point form an extraordinary period of history. From Theodor Herzl's efforts to establish a sovereign Jewish nation in Palestine to the 21st-century roadmap for peace and beyond, The Story of Israel brings the period to life as never before. Sir Martin Gilbert's authoritative text is supplemented by more than 150 photographs and maps, as well as rare documents, including pages from Herzl's diary, identification papers of an Exodus refugee and Ben-Gurion's copy of his Declaration of Independence speech – all of which shed light on fascinating history of the country. This is the ultimate guide to the turbulent history of a proud and powerful nation. Table of ContentsThe Birth of Zionism: the First Zionist Congress, 1897 • A Pioneering Spirit • The Balfour Declaration, 1917 • The Liberation of Palestine, 1918 • The British League of Nations Mandate, 1922 • The Hebrew University • Preparing for Statehood • Resistance, Settlement and the Partial Plan, 1937 • Jewish Immigration Curtailed, 1939 • The Second World War, 1939-45 • The Aftermath of the Holocaust, 1945 • Civil War • Jerusalem Under Siege, 1948 • The War of Independence, 1948-49 • Jewish Immigration from Arab Lands • Building a Vibrant Jewish State, 1948-67 • The Six-Day War, 1967 • The Battle for East Jerusalem, June 1967 • Building a Modern Nation Despite the PLO 1967-73 • The October War, 1973 • Immigration from the Soviet Union • Shuttle Diplomacy and Camp David, 1973-79 • War in Lebanon, 1982 • Paths to Negotiation: Peace Now Movement and the Intifada, 1982-91 • The Peace Process: Oslo 1993 and Beyond • Opposition to Peace: the Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, 1995 • The Peace Process: Into the 21st Century • Israel Among the Nations.

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Book SynopsisNapoleon's attack on Egypt in 1798 was the first on a Middle Eastern country by a Western power in modern times. With 335 ships and 40,000 men, it was the largest long-distance seaborne force the world had ever seen. Napoleon's assault was intended to be much more than a colonial adventure, however, for he took with him over one hundred and fifty scientists, mathematicians, artists and writers - a 'Legion of Culture' - with a view to bringing Western civilization to 'backward' Egypt.Ironically, what these intellectuals discovered in Egypt would transform our knowledge of Western civilization and form the basis of Egyptology. But there were also setbacks. Nelson's destruction of the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile apparently put an end to Napoleon's secret plans to follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great and invade India. Napoleon was just twenty-eight when he invaded Egypt and it was an episode which contained in embryo many seminal events of his later career and set the standard for his brilliant, ambitious and ultimately disastrous career.Trade ReviewPaul Strathern's enthralling description of this bizarre imperial adventure reads like Conrad's Heart of Darkness...as a piece of storytelling, it is a masterpiece * Daily Telegraph *To begin with, the book leaps off the shelf-display into the hands: the dustjacket is a remarkably fine reproduction of a painting of Napoleon...This is an illuminating and most engaging book * Spectator *Superb... Strathern tells the appalling tale of the forced marches across endless deserts...with commendable gusto -- Andrew Roberts * Sunday Telegraph *An ambitious and wonderfully detailed saga * Financial Times *This is popular narrative history at its best * Independent on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisTHE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Shortlisted for the 2020 Cundill History Prize A Granta Book of the Year 2023 'Riveting and original ... a work enriched by solid scholarship, vivid personal experience, and acute appreciation of the concerns and aspirations of the contending parties in this deeply unequal conflict ' Noam Chomsky The twentieth century for Palestine and the Palestinians has been a century of denial: denial of statehood, denial of nationhood and denial of history. The Hundred Years War on Palestine is Rashid Khalidi's powerful response. Drawing on his family archives, he reclaims the fundamental right of any people: to narrate their history on their own terms. Beginning in the final days of the Ottoman Empire, Khalidi reveals nascent Palestinian nationalism and the broad recognition by the early Zionists of the colonial nature of their project. These ideas and their echoes defend Nakba - the Palestinian term for the establishment of the state of Israel - the cession of the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan and Egypt, the Six Day War and the occupation. Moving through these critical moments, Khalidi interweaves the voices of journalists, poets and resistance leaders with his own accounts as a child of a UN official and a resident of Beirut during the 1982 seige. The result is a profoundly moving account of a hundred-year-long war of occupation, dispossession and colonialisation.Trade ReviewKhalidi is rigorous and lucid in assembling his argument, piling up evidence but fair-minded to his opponents and withering about the shortcomings of his side. -- David Gardner * FT *A work enriched by solid scholarship, vivid personal experience, and acute appreciation of the concerns and aspirations of the contending parties in this deeply unequal conflict -- Noam Chomsky

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Book SynopsisA History of Jerusalem should be read, not only by travellers and potential travellers in Jerusalem, but by all of us.' Stephen Tummin, Daily TelegraphJerusalem has probably cast more of a spell over the human imagination than any other city in the world.Held by believers to contain the site where Abraham offered up Isaac, the place of the crucifixion of Christ and the rock from which the prophet Muhammed ascended to heaven, Jerusalem has been celebrated and revered for centuries by Jews, Christians and Muslims. Such is the symbolic power of this ancient city that its future status poses a major obstacle to a comprehensive regional peace in the Middle East.In this comprehensive and elegantly written work, Karen Armstrong traces the turbulent history of the city from the prehistoric era to the present day.Trade Review‘A wonderful book: wise and compassionate, lucid and intelligent, balanced and fair.’William Dalrymple ‘A triumph’Ian Gilmour, London Review of Books ‘Splendid … essential reading for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.’ John Ash, Washington Post ‘Deftly told … Armstrong is a knowledgable guide, and this is a sober and articulate tour of a complex subject and a city where, as she puts it, history is a dimension of the present.’ James Owen, Literary Review

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Book SynopsisA Second Edition of Thomas Friedman's stunning book, the first edition of which won the American National Book Award.If you're only going to read one book on the Middle East, this is it.' Seymour HershIn this lucid, incisive and memorable book, acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic, Friedman reaches deeper into the traumatic and complex recent history of the conflicts in the Middle East than any previous writer.For this new edition, Friedman has added a further two chapters that bring the book up to 1995 and the unfolding and stalling of the Middle Eastern peace process.From Beirut to Jerusalem is wonderully shrewd, surprisingly funny and indispensable to anyone seeking a fuller understanding of the political causes and psychological effects of the seemingly endless strife which besets this embattled region.Trade Review‘Jubilantly intelligent – a dashing hybrid of autobiography and journalism… a lifeline to the sane, a beacon to the hopeful.’Michael Coren, The Times ‘Friedman fills the yawning gap between verbiage and understanding with grace, precision and insight.’Economist. ‘A striking achievement.’Financial Times.

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Book SynopsisTHE THIRD EDITION OF THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER, REVISED AND UPDATED''A rich, galloping narrative that spans the Arab world...outstanding, gripping and exuberant...full of flamboyant character sketches, witty asides and magisterial scholarship, that explains much of what we need to know about the world today'' Simon Sebag Montefiore''Anyone who seeks to understand why the Islamic world bears a grudge against the West should read The Arabs'' Sir Alaistair HorneStarting with the Ottoman conquests in the sixteenth century, this landmark book follows the story of the Arabs through the era of European imperialism and the Superpower rivalries of the Cold War, to the present age of unipolar American power. Drawing on the writings and eyewitness accounts of those who lived through the tumultuous years of Arab history, The Arabs balances different voices - politicians, intellectuals, students, men and women, poets and novelists, famous, infamous and the completely unknown - to give a rich, complex sense of life over nearly five centuries.Rogan''s book is remarkable for its geographical sweep, covering the Arab world from North Africa through the Arabian Peninsula, and for the depth in which it explores every facet of modern Arab history. Charting the evolution of Arab identity from Ottomanism to Arabism to Islamism, it covers themes including the conflict between national independence and foreign domination, the Arab-Israeli struggle and the peace process, Abdel Nasser and the rise of Arab Nationalism, the political and economic power of oil and the conflict between secular and Islamic values.This multilayered, fascinating and definitive work is the essential guide to understanding the history of the modern Arab world - and its future.Trade ReviewIt is a fascinating [story], and exceedingly well told. * Economist *engrossing and capacious... compulsively readable -- Robert Irwin * Guardian *Rogan gives a lucid account of political developments throughout the Arab lands... One of the special features of this book is that it draws on Arab writings (by memoirists, journalists and others) to give an idea of how the Arabs have experienced their own history -- Noel Malcolm * Sunday Telegraph *Anyone who seeks to understand why the Islamic world bears a grudge against the West should read The Arabs. Few scholars know their subject better than Eugene Rogan, while even fewer are capable of rendering so complex a subject so engagingly readable. It is a joy to open, and a deprivation to put down. -- Sir Alistair Horne, author of A Savage War of PeaceA rich, galloping narrative that spans the Arab world...outstanding, gripping and exuberant...full of flamboyant character sketches, witty asides and magisterial scholarship, that explains much of what we need to know about the world today -- Simon Sebag Montefiore * Financial Times *With eloquence, verve, and understanding, Eugene Rogan rightly reminds us that the world, and the Arabs themselves, need to remember the past. If we are to build a better relationship between the Arab world and the West, if we are to avoid making the same mistakes again and again, we need to know Arab history from its many high points to its low ones. I can think of no better guide on this crucially important journey than The Arabs. -- Margaret Macmillan, author of Paris 1919 and Nixon and MaoThe masterly management of the material goes along with plain English, free of academic jargon. -- Hooky Walker * Asian Affairs *

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Book SynopsisNo conflict in the world has lasted as long, generated as many news headlines, or incited as much controversy as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet, despite, or perhaps because of, the degree of international attention it receives, the conflict is still widely misunderstood. While Israelis and Palestinians and their respective supporters trade accusations, many outside observers remain confused by the conflict''s complexity and perplexed by the passion it arouses.The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know offers an even-handed and judicious guide to the world''s most intractable dispute. Rather than presenting a traditional, narrative history, this book employs an accessible question-and-answer format. Writing in an engaging, jargon-free style, Dov Waxman, a leading expert on the Middle East, provides clear and concise answers to common questions, from the most basic to the most contentious. Covering the conflict from its nineteenth-century origins to the latest dTrade Review"Waxman draws on his command of history, diplomacy and politics to untangle what is surely the most challenging quandary in the Middle East since the Gordian knot, and he dispenses his solid expertise in short bursts of clear and highly illuminating prose." -Jonathan Kirsch, The Jewish Journal "A standing ovation is the only reasonable response to Dov Waxman's The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know, as well as heartfelt thanks for addressing all the questions we are afraid everyone knows the answers to but us."- Foreword ReviewsTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments List of Maps and Figures Chronology Ch. 1 - The Basics Ch. 2 - The Origins of the Conflict Ch. 3 - The Arab-Israeli Wars Ch. 4 - The Peace Process Ch. 5 - The Occupied Territories Ch. 6 - The Future of the Conflict Suggestions for Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisThis book offers a new account of how the Great War unmade and then remade the political order of the Middle East. Ranging from Morocco to Iran and spanning the eve of the war into the 1930s, it demonstrates that the modern Middle East was shaped through complex and violent power struggles among local and international actors.Trade ReviewThis masterful book completely rethinks the origins of the modern Middle East. Wyrtzen challenges top-down political analyses that privilege the Great Powers at the expense of local forces. Instead, he offers a methodological and empirical focus on spaces of violence to illuminate not only resistance and conflict but also the success and failure of varied political projects. A must-read for all social science and humanities scholars interested in the role of history and violence in explaining modern social and political change in general and the Middle East in particular. -- Fatma Müge Göçek, author of Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence Against the Armenians, 1789–2009Covering the entirety of the region, from North Africa to Arabia, and carrying the story through into the 1930s, this book shows convincingly how the post-Ottoman Middle East, rather than being simply an arbitrary creation of imperial mapmaking, was profoundly shaped by the decisions and struggles of its peoples. -- Erez Manela, author of The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial NationalismIn the Middle East, World War I did not end in 1918—it continued into the early 1930s. Jonathan Wyrtzen’s Worldmaking in the Long Great War offers a concise, well-written account of these state-building conflicts, which drew the map of the region as we know it today. -- Charles Kurzman, author of Democracy Denied, 1905–1915: Intellectuals and the Fate of DemocracyThis is the postcolonial correction of WWI history we have been waiting for. Jonathan Wyrtzen has written an epic reinterpretation of how the Great War transformed the region stretching from Morocco to Iran. The voices and actions of Arabs, Turks, Berbers, Kurds, Persians, Armenians, Jews, and others ring loud and clear. A must-read for all teachers and scholars of modern world history and Middle Eastern politics. -- Elizabeth F. Thompson, author of How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: The Syrian Congress of 1920 and the Destruction of Its Historic Liberal-Islamic AllianceWyrtzen turns what might have been an overwhelming and dizzying array of subfields into a decisive argument for an updated perspective on a region and a war so often bogged down in Eurocentric, superficial, and dismissive cliches. * Developing Economies *Especially and unreservedly recommended for community, college, and university library 20th Century Middle East History & Politics collections and supplemental curriculum studies syllabus. * Midwest Book Review *An ambitious, and rather admirably compact, survey of history between 1911 and 1934...a very approachable volume capable of introducing students and scholars to the history of the early twentieth century...succinct and convincing. * Middle East Journal *A major feature of Worldmaking in the long great war is the need to move decisively away from the ‘standard narrative’ that the Sykes–Picot Agreement, alongside other wartime agreements and postwar peace treaties, settled or imposed modern polities and boundaries across the Middle East. * International Affairs *A thought-provoking history and will be of interest to readers with an interest in Middle Eastern and North African history and politics as well as modern European history. * Muslim World Book Review *Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I: Unmaking the Greater Ottoman Order1. Geostrategic Questions, Colonial Scrambles, and the Road to the Great War2. The Many Fronts of the Ottomans’ Great War, 1914–1918Part II: Reimagining the Post-Ottoman Middle East3. The Middle East’s So-Called Wilsonian Moment, 1918–19204. Emerging Polities in the Early 1920sPart III: Remaking the Modern Middle East5. Kurdish Uprisings, the Rif War, and the Great Syrian Revolt, 1924–19276. Endgame Struggles in Kurdistan, Cyrenaica, and Arabia, 1927–1934ConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisThis book is a groundbreaking international history of Palestinian refugee politics. Anne Irfan demonstrates that refugee groups are important actors in global politics, not simply aid recipients, and recasts modern Palestinian history through the lens of refugee camps and communities.Trade ReviewThis book constitutes an original and thoroughly researched contribution to the study of both the interaction of international bodies, notably UNRWA, with the Palestine question, and of the agency of Palestinians, whether camp dwellers or the PLO, in relation to these bodies. It is one of the most fine-grained studies extant of UNRWA’s work and of its role as a quasi-state. -- Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017With exemplary clarity and care, Irfan tells the story of how the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees became a significant locus for Palestinian national politics—for articulating what it means to be a Palestinian refugee and what it means to be a Palestinian. This is an excellent and original book. -- Benjamin Thomas White, author of The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East: The Politics of Community in French Mandate SyriaAnne Irfan’s study of UNRWA from its inception to the 1970s is both very timely and an important contribution to fields such as refugee studies, Palestinian history, and the history ofinternational institutions...I strongly recommend the book. -- Jørgen Jensehaugen * Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) *Regrettably timely...a riveting historical overview of the lives and experiences of Palestinians in the UNRWA camps. -- Marc Lynch * Abu Aardvark *Table of ContentsList of IllustrationsNote on Transliteration and TranslationAcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsIntroductionPart I. Remaking Refugeehood1. Becoming Refugees2. From Refuge to Revolution3. An International RegimePart II. Resisting the Regime4. Palestinian Perceptions5. Agents of the Nation6. Palestine at the UNEpilogue: Resistance After RevolutionAppendix A: Palestinian Refugee FiguresAppendix B: Palestinian Refugee CampsGlossaryNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisThe gripping memoir of a Moroccan human rights and women’s rights activist.Table of Contents Author's Dedication Translators' Introduction Chronology Chapter 1. Derb, the Secret Prison: "Or the Narrative of Suffering" Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Behind the Walls of Ghbila: The Trip to Meknes Prison Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Diary of a Hunger Striker: "Imposed Violence" Chapter 10. A Night's Sojourn in Laalou Prison Chapter 11. Trial Day Chapter 12. The Inseparable Twosome Chapter 13. An Incredible Visit Chapter 14. "The Minaret Collapsed and They Hanged the Barber" Chapter 15. Season of Spring, Life, and Happiness Chapter 16. A Prisoner Gives Birth to a Free Person Chapter 17. Ilham: Despairing Screams, Suppressed Grief Chapter 18. Shards of Time in the Life of a Woman Prisoner Chapter 19. The Autumn of a Life without Spring Chapter 20. The Prison House of the Woman Jailer in Sidi Kacem Chapter 21. The Prison that Was a Refuge after the Isolation in Police Stations: Testimony of Widad Bouab Chapter 22. The Police Station, Torture, Prison, and Torturers: Testimony of Latifa Jbabdi Notes

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Book SynopsisIn southeastern Morocco, around the oasis of Tafilalet, the Ait Khabbash people weave brightly colored carpets, embroider indigo head coverings, paint their faces with saffron, and wear ornate jewelry. Their extraordinarily detailed arts are rich in cultural symbolism; they are always breathtakingly beautiful—and they are typically made by women. Like other Amazigh (Berber) groups (but in contrast to the Arab societies of North Africa), the Ait Khabbash have entrusted their artistic responsibilities to women. Cynthia Becker spent years in Morocco living among these women and, through family connections and female fellowship, achieved unprecedented access to the artistic rituals of the Ait Khabbash. The result is more than a stunning examination of the arts themselves, it is also an illumination of women''s roles in Islamic North Africa and the many ways in which women negotiate complex social and religious issues.One of the reasons Amazigh women are artists is that the Table of Contents A Note on Transcription and Transliteration Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One. Ait Khabbash Textiles: Weaving Metaphors of Identity Chapter Two. The Art of Dressing the Body Chapter Three. Dance Performances: Negotiating Gender and Social Change Chapter Four. Women as Public Symbols of Identity: The Adornment of the Bride and Groom Chapter Five. Performing Amazigh Gender Roles: Wedding Ceremonies Chapter Six. Oh, My Sudanese Mother: The Legacy of Slavery in Ait Khabbash Art Chapter Seven. Contemporary Amazigh Arts: Giving Material Form to Amazigh Consciousness Appendix 1. Selected Songs from Ait Khabbash Weddings Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisNow with a new afterword that surveys the “North African Spring” uprisings that roiled the region from 2011 to 2013, this is the most comprehensive history of North Africa to date, with accessible, in-depth chapters covering the pre-Islamic period throughTrade Review"North Africa’s story from antiquity onward, Mr. Naylor shows, is one of turbulence, borrowings, exchanges, competition, and cooperation across all manner of barriers, by no means only cultural. . . . [This is] a solid history of a region with whose conflicts we—not to mention the Sahrawis and their neighbors—are fated to contend with for at least a few years still." * Wall Street Journal *"Naylor elegantly leads the reader through the maze of events that have shaped the history of a vast region at the crossroads of civilizations. . . . North Africa is a valuable introduction for students and the general public of an understudied part of the world." * Middle East Journal *"[This book succeeds] in its primary task of ‘locating’ North Africa’s place in the curriculum, and I anticipate that it will become the primary textbook for coursework in this emerging field. The general reader will also be well served by turning to it first for an English-language survey. . . . The specialist of the region . . . will appreciate it when sorting out the complexity of North Africa’s long history, a history few have mastered as well in print as Naylor." * Journal of African History *Table of Contents List of Maps A Note to the Reader Preface to First Edition Preface to Revised Edition Introduction 1. Ancient North Africa and Its Expansive Civilizations 2. Rome and North Africa 3. Medieval North Africa: From the Arrival of Islam to the Berber Empires 4. The Almoravid and the Almohad Empires and Their Successor States 5. Turkish Ascendance and Moroccan Independence 6. European Colonialism in North Africa 7. The Decolonization of North Africa 8. Post-Colonial and Contemporary North Africa: Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia 9. Post-Colonial and Contemporary North Africa: Algeria, Morocco, and Western Sahara Conclusion. The Peril and Promise of North Africa Afterword. The North African Spring Notes Glossary Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA vivid portrait of one of the most powerful leaders in Israel's first decades of statehoodTrade Review"This well-written and absorbing book offers an authoritative account of the life of Moshe Dayan and places him in the context of larger events. Doing justice to the complex and intriguing persona of Dayan, Bar-On writes for a wide audience, both general readers and students of Israel and the Middle East. I read it with great interest and profit."—Itamar Rabinovich, former Israeli ambassador to the United States and author of Waging Peace: Israel and the Arabs, 1948–2003 -- Itamar Rabinovich"[A] revealing and engrossing account of the life of an often admirable but frustratingly enigmatic man."—Jay Freeman, Booklist -- Jay Freeman * Booklist *"Mordechai Bar-On, Dayan’s bureau chief during the mid-1950s as the latter was Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff, brings a welcome addition to the canon of Dayan, weaving first-person observations as he amends the historical record."—Neil Rubin, Baltimore Jewish Times -- Neil Rubin * Baltimore Jewish Times *"This brief, incisive, elegantly written book is full of up-close and personal glimpses of and insights into the many pivotal roles Dayan played in his nation’s military and political affairs."—Martin Rubin, Washington Times * Washington Times *"Refreshing. . . Bridging the gaps of a complex personality is the great achievement of this brief but highly thoughtful book."—Jason Warshof, Jerusalem Report * Jerusalem Report *"Briefly and elegantly conveys the life of a man who played an important role in Israeli history."—The Historian * The Historian *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"In this fine work, Guy Laron, a young historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, takes a fresh look at the war and its causes. . . . Like all the best history, Laron’s book is studded with fascinating facts and anecdotes that shed light on his theories."—Michael Sheridan, Sunday Times"With the occupation now in ripe middle age, an engaging crop of new books is re­examining its consequences —and, in the case of Guy Laron’s The Six Day War, making us look afresh at the events that led to conflict between Israel and its neighbours. Laron, a historian at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, argues that the war was no accident; rather, it was 'designed and even desired by prominent military figures in the warring countries.'"—John Reed, Financial Times"For Laron, there are no simple binaries. . . . Laron’s critical approach echoes that of Segev, while his diligent and eye-opening archival work complements that undertaken by Oren. He describes the war from a number of different perspectives, and places it in a global context . . . he paints a comprehensive and captivating picture of a complex reality."—Ari Shavit, Times Literary Supplement"Israel today has a raft of 'post-Zionist' academics and journalists for whom everything the country has done is a standing moral reproach. Writing more in sorrow than in anger, Guy Laron takes a different approach, examining how and why the war occurred at all."—David Pryce-Jones, Literary Review“A finely balanced account that puts the politics back into the study of the origins of the June 1967 War. Outstanding scholarship—this new book confirms Laron as a leading authority on the Arab-Israeli conflict.”—Eugene Rogan, author of The Arabs: A History"This timely and riveting work, drawing upon new archival materials from all the warring sides as well as US, Soviet, and Warsaw-Pact sources, provides a meticulously detailed political and military narrative along with a perceptive analysis of the origins, course, and outcome of the conflict that changed the Middle East and world politics."—Carole Fink, author of Defending the Rights of Others and Cold War: An International History"Laron uses sources no one else has and challenges all those who would understand these events as confined to its Middle Eastern context. Fifty years after the outbreak of the June 1967 war and there is finally someone with something new to say about it."—Robert Vitalis, author of White World Order, Black Power Politics"A new and exciting interpretation of the war that broke the Middle East, with the Soviet and Cold War aspects covered in full for the first time. A very valuable corrective to the existing literature."—Odd Arne Westad, Harvard University, author of The Cold War: A World History

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