Middle Eastern history Books

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Book SynopsisThe volume examines the causes and consequences of regional turbulence in the Middle East following the 2003 Iraq war and the 2011 Arab uprisings. ?

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Book SynopsisStudies rebellion as historical phenomenon and literary construct in early Islamicate contexts.

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Book SynopsisDuring most of its history, Babylon was the capital of a kingdom that corresponded roughly to the southern and central parts of Iraq. This work presents a narrative history of Babylon from the time of its First Dynasty (1880-1595) until the last centuries of the city's existence during the Hellenistic and Parthian periods (ca 331-75 AD).Table of ContentsList of Illustrations xii List of Tables xiv List of Maps xvi Preface xvii List of Abbreviations xix Author’s Note xx 1 Introductory Concerns 1 1.1 Assyriology and the Writing of History 3 1.1.1 Cuneiform Texts as Historical Sources 4 1.2 Historical Science and the Handling of Sources 17 1.3 Chronology 20 2 The Sumero-Akkadian Background 24 2.1 Babylonia as Geographic Unit 24 2.2 The Natural Environment 25 2.3 The Neolithic Revolution 28 2.4 The Ubaid Period (6500–4000) 29 2.5 The Uruk Period (4000–3100) 30 2.6 The Jemdet Nasr Period (3100–2900) 31 2.7 The Early Dynastic Period (2900–2350) 34 2.7.1 The State of Lagash 38 2.7.2 Babylon in the Early Dynastic Period 40 2.8 The Sargonic (Old Akkadian) and Gutian Periods (ca. 2334–2113) 41 2.8.1 Akkadian and Sumerian Linguistic Areas 42 2.8.2 The Early Sargonic Period (ca. 2334–2255) 44 2.8.3 The Classical Sargonic Period (ca. 2254–2193) 46 2.8.4 Babylon in the Sargonic Period 50 2.8.5 The Late Sargonic (ca. 2193–2154) and Gutian Periods (ca. 2153–2113) 51 2.9 The Third Dynasty of Ur (2112–2004) 52 2.9.1 King of Sumer and Akkad 53 2.9.2 Shulgi’s Babylonia 54 2.9.3 Failure of the Ur III State 56 2.9.4 Babylon during the Ur III Period 57 3 The Rise of Babylon 60 3.1 The First Dynasty of Isin (2017–1794) 62 3.2 The Amorites 64 3.2.1 Amorite Genealogies and Histories 66 3.3 Date Lists and King Lists of Babylon I 68 3.4 Elusive Beginnings 69 3.5 Sumu-la-el (1880–1845) 70 3.5.1 The Letter of Anam and the Babylon-Uruk Alliance 71 3.6 Half a Century of Stability (1844–1793) 72 3.6.1 The Battle for Kazallu 74 3.6.2 The Apex of Larsa 75 3.7 Hammu-rabi (1792–1750) 76 3.7.1 In the Shadow of Samsi-Addu (1792–1775) 77 3.7.2 Eshnunna’s Bid for Hegemony (1772–1770) 79 3.7.3 A Fragile Equilibrium (1769–1766) 80 3.7.4 The Elamite Intervention and its Aftermath (1766–1764) 82 3.7.5 Showdown with Larsa (1764–1763) 83 3.7.6 The Capture and Sack of Mari (1761–1759) 85 3.7.7 Towards an Empire (1759–1750) 85 3.7.8 The Code of Hammu-rabi 86 3.7.9 Hammu-rabi as Administrator 92 4 Decline of the First Dynasty 97 4.1 The Reign of Samsu-iluna (1749–1712) 97 4.1.1 The Rebellion of Rim-Sin II (1742–1740) 99 4.1.2 The Rebellion of Rim-Anum (1742–1740) 100 4.1.3 The Invasion of the Kassites (1742) 101 4.1.4 Samsu-iluna Strikes Back 101 4.1.5 Sargonic Reveries 102 4.1.6 Loss of Southern Babylonia 103 4.1.7 Northern Exertions 104 4.1.8 Loss of Central Babylonia and Rise of the Sealand 108 4.1.9 From Sumerian to Akkadian Literature 108 4.1.10 Samsu-iluna as Administrator and Legislator 109 4.2 The Last Century of Babylon I (1711–1595) 111 4.2.1 Abi-eshuh (1711–1684) 111 4.2.2 Ammi-ditana (1683–1647) 113 4.2.3 Ammi-saduqa (1646–1626) 114 4.2.4 Samsu-ditana (1625–1595) 117 4.2.5 The City of Babylon during the First Dynasty 119 5 Kassite Ascendancy 122 5.1 The Kassites as Linguistic and Cultural Group 122 5.2 The Early Kassite Period (1595–ca. 1400) 125 5.2.1 The Texts from Tell Muhammad 125 5.2.2 The Early Kassite Rulers (Sixteenth Century) 127 5.2.3 The First Dynasty of the Sealand (ca. 1725–1475) 129 5.2.4 The Reunification of Babylonia 131 5.3 Kassite Babylonia: The Documentary Evidence 132 5.3.1 A New Source: The Kudurrus 133 5.4 Karduniash: A New Babylonia 135 5.4.1 Kurigalzu I 137 5.4.2 Dur-Kurigalzu: A Kassite Royal Residence 137 5.5 The Age of Amarna 140 5.6 The Rise of Assyria 142 5.7 The Middle Kassite Period (1332–1225) 143 5.7.1 Ruralization of Babylonia 145 5.7.2 Nippur as Southern Capital 146 5.8 The Intervention of Tukulti-Ninurta I and its Aftermath 147 5.9 End of the Kassite Regime (1186–1155) 150 5.10 Akkadian Literature under the Kassites 151 6 Second Dynasty of Isin 154 6.1 Marduk and Nabu 157 6.2 Renewed Conflict with Assyria 158 6.3 Nebuchadnezzar I (1121–1100) 159 6.3.1 The Elamite Campaign and the Return of Marduk 159 6.3.2 Enuma Elish and the Supremacy of Marduk 161 6.3.3 Nebuchadnezzar I and Royal Legitimacy 163 6.4 Sealand Memories under Enlil-nadin-apli (1099–1096) 164 6.5 Marduk-nadin-ahhe (1095–1078) 164 6.5.1 Aramean Invasions 167 6.6 Marduk-shapik-zeri (1077–1065) 167 6.7 Adad-apla-iddina (1064–1043) 168 6.8 The End of Isin II (1042–1022) 169 7 Arameans and Chaldeans 171 7.1 The Arameans 172 7.2 The Chaldeans 173 7.3 Three Short Dynasties 176 7.4 The Dynasty of E 178 7.4.1 Nabu-mukin-apli (974–939) 179 7.4.2 Assyrian Resurgence 179 7.4.3 Nabu-apla-iddina 180 7.4.4 Marduk-zakir-shumi I 182 7.4.5 Descent into Anarchy (819–770?) 183 7.4.6 Eriba-Marduk 186 7.4.7 Nabu-shuma-ishkun (760?–748) 186 7.4.8 Nabonassar (747–734) 188 8 The Assyrian Century 193 8.1 The Rebellion of Mukin-zeri 196 8.2 The palû of Baltil (728–722) 197 8.3 Marduk-apla-iddina II and Chaldean Resistance (721–709) 198 8.4 The palû of Habigal (709–694) 201 8.5 The Two Shuzubus (694–689) 204 8.6 Sennacherib’s Desecration of Babylon (689–681) 206 8.7 Esarhaddon Restores Babylon (681–669) 208 8.7.1 A New Generation of Opponents 209 8.8 Regnant Siblings (669–652) 211 8.9 Civil War (652–648) 214 8.10 Ashurbanipal and Kandalanu (647–630/27) 216 9 Imperial Heyday 219 9.1 Sources 220 9.1.1 Neo-Babylonian Archives 221 9.1.2 Spread of Aramaic 222 9.2 Power Struggle for Babylonia (630–620) 223 9.3 A Chaldeo-Aramean Empire 224 9.4 The Fall of Assyria (616–609) 225 9.5 Nabopolassar and the Restoration of Babylonia 227 9.6 Nebuchadnezzar in the Levant 227 9.7 The Climax of Babylon 229 9.7.1 Economic Expansion 232 9.7.2 Administration of Babylonia 233 9.7.3 Methods of Imperial Control 235 9.8 A Problematic Succession (562–556) 237 9.9 Babylon’s Twilight: The Reign of Nabonidus (555–539) 238 9.9.1 The Conquest of North Arabia 239 9.9.2 Geopolitical Upheaval 240 9.9.3 The Last Days of Imperial Babylon 243 10 Babylon under Foreign Rule 246 10.1 Cyrus Enters Babylon 247 10.2 A Smooth Transition 248 10.3 The Babylonian Pretenders of 522–521 250 10.4 The Reforms of Darius I 251 10.5 The Babylonian Pretenders of 484 253 10.6 Babylonia in the Late Achaemenid Period 254 10.7 Hellenistic Babylonia 256 10.8 Alexander and his Successors in Babylon (331–311) 257 10.9 Babylon and Seleucia 259 10.10 An Age of Renewal 261 10.11 Hellenization of Babylonia 263 10.12 Parthian Takeover 265 10.13 Sic Transit 266 Appendix: Checklist of Chronicles 269 Bibliography 271 Index 273

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Book SynopsisMecca is the heart of Islam. It is the birthplace of Muhammad, the direction towards which Muslims turn when they pray and the site of pilgrimage which annually draws some three million Muslims from all corners of the world. Yet Mecca's importance goes beyond religion. What happens in Mecca and how Muslims think about the political and cultural history of Mecca has had and continues to have a profound influence on world events to this day. In this captivating book, Ziauddin Sardar unravels the significance of Mecca. Tracing its history, from its origins as a barren valley' in the desert to its evolution as a trading town and sudden emergence as the religious centre of a world empire, Sardar examines the religious struggles and rebellions in Mecca that have powerfully shaped Muslim culture. Interweaving stories of his own pilgrimages to Mecca with those of others, Sardar offers a unique insight into not just the spiritual aspects of Mecca the passion, ecstasy and longing itTrade ReviewOne of the best-known Muslim public intellectuals in the world today ... A pioneering writer on Islam * Guardian on Muhammad: All that Matters *Sardar is funny, self-deprecating and humble … One of the wittiest intellectual figures commenting on Islam * Islamic Voice on Muhammad: All that Matters *Britain’s own Muslim polymath * Independent *Readers of Mecca may at times feel they are still accompanying Sardar on his journey as a sceptical Muslim; mostly, they will sense a wide ranging intellectual engagement with a city that has been one of the world’s most important over the last one and a half millennia. In his hands they can appraise how this long history connects with the predicament facing his fellow believers in the world today. -- Geoffrey Nash * ASTENE Bulletin *Ziauddin Sardar’s poignant book Mecca: The Sacred City, describes the desecration of Islam’s holiest site -- Yasmin Alibhai-Brown * Independent *

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Book SynopsisThe Arab revolts changed the Middle East forever. A movement for democratic change has dissolved into chaos and bloodshed. States are collapsing. Out of a wave of sectarian fervour unleashed by these changes has emerged the merciless cruelty of Islamic State. Has the promise of the Arab Spring been lost? Can the West win a new War on Terror' against ISIS? Will a new generation of Arab strongmen crush the young revolutionaries who fought so hard for change? Drawing on a deep knowledge of the region and access to many of the key players, BBC Bureau Chief Paul Danahar explains how the history of the Middle East before the revolts has created the current turmoil. This updated edition includes a new Introduction, a revised chapter on recent events in Syria, new material on the rise of ISIS, and a new Afterward that brings the book completely up to date.Trade ReviewDanahar weaves a complex narrative into a lively, accessible read, much of which should withstand the passage of time … A solid but easygoing compendium for anyone who wants a read beyond the headlines, done with a journalistic lightness of touch * Daily Telegraph *This is a book about what happened after the Arab leaders were toppled in 2011, after the euphoria went flat and people went home again ... The optimistic take on the Arab revolution, though, is that the coups and massacres are part of a messy process that will eventually lead to more democratically responsive societies. This argument threads its way through Danahar’s remarkable analysis of the Arab Spring and I would like it to come true ... Danahar, an old Iraq hand, knows his sectarian fault lines and is a good guide. And, exceptionally for an Arabist, he deftly weaves in the problems of Isreal ... This is a book that tries to engage with people who can speak for everyone in the Spring, from Brotherhood activists ... To Israeli and Egyptian generals. It is written in a spirit of adventure ... And is all the better for it * The Times *The New Middle East is far and away the best book I’ve read on the effects of the Arab Spring: an excellent amalgamation of the scholarly and the journalistic, which gives it both a magisterial overview and the precision of close-up experience. Country by country Danahar has gone through the most important countries of the region, tracking the causes of change and the likely effects, and each of his judgments seems to me to be precise, enviably clear, thoroughly grounded and highly impressive. The world will move on after The New Middle East, and there will be major new developments, especially in Syria, but this book will continue to offer far more than just a snapshot of a particular moment: it will be a text which I, for one, will come back to again and again in order to understand the future * John Simpson *It’s hard to think of a senior BBC journalist better placed to write such a fine book on what the Middle East and the world looks like in the wake of the Arab Spring or one that has more insights … He has managed to achieve what many writers rarely do; to allow the voices of the people he has met, interviewed and worked and travelled with to emerge and to paint a picture of the Arab Spring through their eyes. He has done so in a style that is immediate, accessible and filled with warmth, compassion, realism * Rageh Omaar *Reporters who can analyse, and analysts who spent time on the ground, are rare. Time and again in this thorough, provocative and readable work, Danahar shows he combines the best of both. Danahar has spent years on the ground, working in some of the toughest places in the world. But this is no instant journalist’s account. Every turned page reveals deep research, powerful argument and a talent for acutely observed detail. Anyone interested in the Middle East, its present, past or future, should read this book * Jason Burke *There is lots of writing about the Middle East, much of it muddle-headed and ludicrously partial. It leaves you longing for a book that is clear-headed, honest and intelligent. Paul Danahar has produced such a book. His narrative spans a turbulent time but throughout all the upheavals and horrors he witnesses Danahar is a calm and intelligent witness. There is also great humanity in this excellent book. One is never allowed to forget that the Arab Spring is a narrative of people in extremis * Fergal Keane *Danahar's account has the pacey urgency and vivid colour of on-the-day news reporting ... he gives coherence and shape to the historic shifts taking place. He has a talent for shutting the noise of extraneous detail and laying bare the big picture. This book is trenchant, opinionated, blunt, entertaining and pleasingly readable. If you want a thorough accessible account of what has been going on in the Arab world over the last decade – and the historical context that gave rise to it – look no further * Allan Little *He reports perceptively on the internal contradictions of the Jewish state, from militant settlers to the ultraorthodox Haredim * Christopher de Bellaigue, Guardian *A timely exploration of an unstable region still on the brink of change and revolution * Traveller *Are you confused by the welter in the Middle East, headlines crowded with revolution and coup, Islamism, civil war and resurgent jihad? May I recommend Paul Danahar’s excellent regional survey, The New Middle East: The World After the Arab Spring? Danahar is the BBC’s Middle East bureau chief, experienced and clear eyed. His style is crisp and elegant, equally adept at telling human portraits as interviewing generals and presidents and sketching historical context ... The events of the Arab Spring and its aftermath will continue to defy prediction; but in the meantime, it’s worth reading Danahar to take stock of some of the geopolitical tectonic shifts and the forces that are remaking our old assumptions * Prospect *

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Book SynopsisHe analyzes the geopolitical causes of conflict and prospects for resolution, assesses implications of the impasse over economic zones in the eastern Mediterranean where Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Turkey all have claims, and reflects on the meaning of borders and frontiers today.Trade ReviewMore scholars will probably re-examine the dramatic vicissitudes that have transpired in the tri-border region in the near future. Kaufman's exhaustive research will serve as an important resource for all of them. -- Mori Ram Antipode The main contribution of this work is its rich empirical quality. To shed light on the struggle over borders, the author has consulted American, British, French, Israeli, and United Nations (UN) documents, along with some Arabic material. The book is theoretically informed, drawing on the academic literature of subjects such as border conflicts, sovereignty, borderlands, and state formation without necessarily seeking to contribute substantially to the development of theories... The work's painstaking attention to detail makes it extraordinarily valuable for scholars of Israel-Lebanese-Syrian relations and essential for those interested in border disputes between these countries. -- James R Stocker H-Diplo A meticulously detailed, carefully written account of the geopolitics of a very small but highly contested area... The construction of the book unfolds like an elegant mathematical proof, in which the reader is shown how a led to b and then to c, and how a sequence of various elements, piled on top of one another in chronological succession, have led to this apparently insignificant area becoming a major point of contestation in the Arab-Israeli conflict. -- Peter Sluglett American Historical ReviewTable of ContentsList of Maps and FiguresAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I: Mapping the Tri-Border Region1. Colonial Mapping2. Mapping the Mandates3. After Independence4. The United Nations: Mapping, Mediating, and Peacekeeping, 1949–20005. Cartographic Wars: The Israeli Withdrawal from South Lebanon and BeyondPart II: Borders, Boundaries, and Frontiers, 1924-19826. The Making of the Tri-Border Region, 1924–19497. During and Between Wars: 1949–19738. Fatahland: How Lebanon Became a Frontline State9. Whose Water Is This? Boundaries and Hydropolitics10. Crossing Boundaries: The Trans-Arabian Pipeline and the Arab-Israeli ConflictPart III: The Shebaa Farms Dispute and Beyond11. A Fabricated Border Quandary?12. The Shebaa Farms, Hizbullah, and Lebanese Sovereignty13. Joha's Nail? Israel and the Shebaa Farms14. Resolving the Dispute? The United Nations in the Tri-Border Region, 2000–2010Conclusion: On Cartography, Sovereignty, and ConflictNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisExplores the delicate interplay between emigration of Jews from Israel to Germany and the construction of a new identity in the shadow of antisemitism both past and present in their new home.Critically analyzing Israeli-Jewish migration to Germany, A Double Burden combines complementary approaches from the social sciences-quantitative, qualitative, and ethnographic research-to track migrants'' reasons for moving, their families'' reactions, their settlement in the new country, and their social and economic integration, construction of identity, and perceptions of old and new antisemitism in Germany. Each chapter is placed within a relevant theoretical framework, the entire discussion set against the background of present-day international migration in general, migration to Germany in particular, and the Jewish experience in unified Germany. Rich with empirical evidence and presented with exceptional clarity and accessibility, A Double Burden will appeal to scholars of migration studies, the Israeli Diaspora, and German-Jewish life, as it also illuminates trauma and memory among third-generation Holocaust survivors.

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Book SynopsisUnderstand the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is the essential guide to one of the world''s most distressing confrontations. Putting the present situation into its broader context and examining all perspectives, it unravels the origins and development of issues which make the headlines daily. Each aspect of this complex conflict is explained with engaging objectivity which will ensure you can examine the issues from all perspectives and in a social, political, historical and international framework.NOT GOT MUCH TIME?One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started.AUTHOR INSIGHTSLots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author''s many years of experience.EXTEND YOUR KNOWLEDGEExtra online articles at www.teachyourself.com to give you a richer understanding.FIVE THINGS TO REMEMBERQuick refreshers to help you remember the key facts.TRY THISTable of Contents : Chapter 1 Biblical beginnings : Chapter 1 Biblical beginnings : Chapter 2 Whose land? : Chapter 2 Whose land? : Chapter 3 The Mandate : Chapter 3 The Mandate : Chapter 4 Israel : Chapter 4 Israel : Chapter 5 Battle lines : Chapter 5 Battle lines : Chapter 6 PLO and war : Chapter 6 PLO and war : Chapter 7 Arafat and the PLO : Chapter 7 Arafat and the PLO : Chapter 8 Camp David : Chapter 8 Camp David : Chapter 9 The Lebanese battleground : Chapter 9 The Lebanese battleground : Chapter 10 Intifada : Chapter 10 Intifada : Chapter 11 Madrid and beyond : Chapter 11 Madrid and beyond : Chapter 12 Sharon : Chapter 12 Sharon : Chapter 13 Hamas and Hezbollah, 2006-7 : Chapter 13 Hamas and Hezbollah, 2006-7 : Chapter 14 Ways forward? : Chapter 14 Ways forward? : Glossary : Glossary : Taking it further : Taking it further : Index : Index

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Book SynopsisExam Board: AQA, Edexcel, OCR & WJECLevel: A-levelSubject: HistoryFirst Teaching: September 2015First Exam: June 2016Give your students the best chance of success with this tried and tested series, combining in-depth analysis, engaging narrative and accessibility. Access to History is the most popular, trusted and wide-ranging series for A-level History students.This title:- Supports the content and assessment requirements of the 2015 A-level History specifications- Contains authoritative and engaging content- Includes thought-provoking key debates that examine the opposing views and approaches of historians- Provides exam-style questions and guidance for each relevant specification to help students understand how to apply what they have learntThis title is suitable for a variety of courses including:- OCR: The Middle East 1908-2011: Ottomans to Ara

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Book SynopsisWhen the Gulf Crisis of 1990 was triggered by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the RAF responded by sending Tornado F 3 fighters to Saudi Arabia to help defend the country against further aggression. These aircraft were followed by the deployment of Tornado GR 1 strike/attack aircraft to Bahrain. Eventually three wings of Tornado GR 1s were established in Bahrain, Tabuk and Dhahran, as well as a detachment of Tornado GR 1A reconnaissance aircraft. At the start of hostilities in January 1991, the Tornado GR 1 wings carried out night-low-level attacks against Iraqi Main Operating Bases using the JP233 runway denial weapon. Meanwhile, Combat Air Patrols from the Tornado F 3 wing ensured the integrity of Saudi airspace. Once air supremacy had been established, the Tornado GR 1 force moved to medium-level operations, initially by night and later by day, to attack the Iraqi oil production and storage infrastructure. The arrival in theatre of a laser designation capability with Pave Spike/BuccTable of Contents1. Preparation for War 2. First Day of Conflict 3. Counter-Air Campaign 4. Medium-Level Operations Appendices - Colour Plates - Index

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Book SynopsisConflict in the Middle East has caused observers to ask if Muslims and Christians can coexist. History suggests that relations between those two groups are not predetermined, but are the product of particular social and political circumstances. This book examines Muslim-Christian relations during an earlier period of political and social upheaval.Trade Review"Haiduc-Dale offers a chronological history of Palestinian politics that focuses on the particular role in each stage of Christians, whose narratives have often been marginalized or essentialized. In the process, he offers a comprehensive and easy to follow guide to key landmarks in the development of the Palestinian national movement more generally.' - Liora R. Halperin, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. "Published in these times when the fates of Arab Christians and other minorities are at stake in the Middle East, this book is an important contribution to our understanding of the history of Christian communities in Mandate Palestine and in the Middle East in-general."- George Emile Irani, Journal of Palestine Studies

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Book SynopsisThis book examines the strategies and military tactics of the Byzantines and their enemies in Eastern Anatolia, Syria and in Upper Mesopotamia in the tenth century.

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Book SynopsisThis book shows the development of women's status in the Mongol Empire from its original homeland in Mongolia up to the end of the Ilkhanate of Iran in 1335.

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Book SynopsisThis book argues that the periodic ceremonial intrusion into the everyday lives of people across the Ottoman Empire, which the annual royal birthday and accession-day celebrations constituted, had multiple, far-reaching and largely unexplored consequences.

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Book SynopsisA comprehensive history of the Matzpen group who advocated for a community of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs in a socialist Middle East.

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Book SynopsisThis book discusses the largest private book collection of the pre-Ottoman Arabic Middle East for which we have both a paper trail and a surviving corpus of the manuscripts that once sat on its shelves: the Ibn ?Abd al-H?d? Library of Damascus.

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Book SynopsisUncovering a history buried by different nationalist narratives (Jewish, Israeli, Arab and Palestinian) this book looks at how the late Ottoman era set the stage for the on-going Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

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Book SynopsisThis volume collects 20 papers on the Crusades by one of the world?s leading experts on medieval Islamic history. The papers showcase multiple perspectives, especially as viewed from the Muslim side. The volume explores the distinctive nature of Islamic jihad as expressed in poetry, sermons and inscriptions; the development of the counter-crusade; and the careers of major Muslim leaders including Zengi and Saladin.

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Book SynopsisExamines new authoritarian practices and state control in MENA countries to target and neutralise dissidents

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the struggles of a minority group Alevis for recognition and representation in Turkey and the diaspora. It examines how they mobilise against state practices and claim their rights, while at the same time negotiating how they define themselves.

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Book SynopsisExplores the role of the North Caucasus as the first borderland between the Ottoman and Russian Empires in the 16th century

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Book SynopsisIn Lives Between the Lines, Michael Vatikiotis traces the journey of his Greek and Italian forebears from Tuscany, Crete, Hydra and Rhodes, as they made their way to Egypt and the coast of Palestine in search of opportunity. In the process, he reveals a period where the Middle East was a place of ethnic and cultural harmony - where Arabs and Jews rubbed shoulders in bazaars and teashops, intermarried and shared family history.While lines were eventually drawn and people, including Vatikiotis''s family, found themselves caught between clashing faiths, contested identities and violent conflict, this intimate and sweeping memoir is a paean to tolerance, offering a nuanced understanding of the lost Levant.Trade ReviewLives Between the Lines is the moving and beautifully written story of a journey to explore [Vatikiotis's] identity by visiting the places - primarily Egypt and Israel - in which several generations of his Levantine ancestors made their homes. As well as being a highly personal family-memoir-cum-travelogue, it is a paean to tolerance between diverse faiths and different communities at a time when much of the Middle East is being consumed by bigotry, fanaticism and sectarian violence -- Justin Marozzi * FINANCIAL TIMES *Vatikiotis's pen portraits left me wanting more of this amazing cast of characters. For the family are bit-part players in what is in fact a potted history of the late Levant, living proofs in his view of the Ottoman Empire's enlightened approach to minority cultures . . . Vatikiotis's final two chapters describe and acknowledge the ambiguities consequent on Britain's eventual imperial retreat and the region's expulsions of foreigners - British, Jewish, Greek, Italian alike. They are easily the finest and worth the cover price alone . . . fascinating -- Richard Spencer * THE TIMES *Vatikiotis is quietly opinionated, a quality which makes him an admirable guide for this evocation of an era - a journey of personal discovery, where, despite complexities, everything stands neatly in historical and topographical context -- Andrew Lycett * SPECTATOR *[A] human and fascinating insider view of Levantine families in the mid-twentieth century * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *A brilliant evocation of an era when the Middle East was a haven of peace and prosperity for people fleeing Europe. Lives Between the Lines interweaves a fascinating family history with a portrait of a lost world - which has many echoes and lessons for today -- Gideon Rachman

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Book SynopsisThe 1967 Arab–Israeli War rocketed the question of Israel and Palestine onto the front pages of American newspapers. Black Power activists saw Palestinians as a kindred people of color, waging the same struggle for freedom and justice as themselves. Soon concerns over the Arab–Israeli conflict spread across mainstream black politics and into the heart of the civil rights movement itself. Black Power and Palestine uncovers why so many African Americans—notably Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali, among others—came to support the Palestinians or felt the need to respond to those who did. Americans first heard pro-Palestinian sentiments in public through the black freedom struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. Michael R. Fischbach uncovers this hidden history of the Arab–Israeli conflict's role in African American activism and the ways that distant struggle shaped the domestic fight for racial equality. Black Power's transnational connections between African Americans and Palestinians deeply affected U.S. black politics, animating black visions of identity well into the late 1970s. Black Power and Palestine allows those black voices to be heard again today. In chronicling this story, Fischbach reveals much about how American peoples of color create political strategies, a sense of self, and a place within U.S. and global communities. The shadow cast by events of the 1960s and 1970s continues to affect the United States in deep, structural ways. This is the first book to explore how conflict in the Middle East shaped the American civil rights movement.Trade Review"Michael R. Fischbach explores one of the most important international ramifications of the political awakening of African Americans in the 20th century: how movements ranging from the Black Muslims and Black Panthers to SNCC and the NAACP related to the Palestinian struggle. Original and timely, Black Power and Palestine offers fascinating insight into a vital issue in the self-definition of the African American community, one that continues to have great relevance today in the growing linkages between the Black Lives Matter movement and Palestinian activism."—Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University, author of Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East"Black Power and Palestine is an indispensable read on the civil rights and Black Power era, shedding new light on just how deeply the Arab-Israeli conflict has shaped black domestic politics. Anyone interested in why conflict in the Middle East continues to cast its long shadow over U.S. foreign and domestic policy should read this book."—Cynthia A. Young, The Pennsylvania State University, author of Soul Power: Culture, Radicalism, and the Making of a U.S. Third World Left"Fischbach's work is nothing short of an historical tour de force, shedding light on the interplay between Black activist spheres of the 1960s and '70s and their wider world.... A masterpiece of investigative research, this book is the fruit of many years spent deep in the archives, chasing down government documents, and of extensive interviews with activists and key players....Black Power and Palestine is without doubt a fresh, invaluable addition to the canons of Black struggle and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."—Amin Gharad, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs"[A] meticulously researched history of the ties between the Black and Palestinian liberation struggles from the 1960s to the 1980s.... Fischbach explores how the Black Power movement of the 1960s embraced the Palestinian cause and how this eventually influenced moderate civil rights organizations that had unquestioningly supported Israel....Black Power and Palestine is essential reading."—Rod Such, Electronic Intifada"Fischbach offers a fascinating account of the under-examined, little-known relationship between Black Power and Palestinian activists. This well-documented book demonstrates how black militants aligned themselves with the Palestinian cause as a result of their international, anti-imperialist struggle for liberation...Most significant, this book dispels the notion of an American domestic consensus with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and points the reader toward the nuanced ways in which this conflict has impacted American society...Highly recommended."—M. F. Cairo, CHOICE"Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color by Michael Fischbach is a unique and necessary contribution to the fields ofblack, Middle Eastern, and world history. It creates a panoramic and simultaneously nuanced narrative about the history of Black Power solidarity with Palestinians."––Nadia Alahmed, H-Diplo"Michael Fischbach's Black Power and Palestine is the best book yet written on the contemporary history of Afro-Palestinian solidarity. The book is invaluable as a scholarly record of Black efforts to organize with and in support of Palestinian liberation, but also as a political argument about the centrality of Palestinian solidarity work to building internationalist, anti-imperialist solidarity in our time."––Bill V. Mullen, Mondoweiss"Fischbach's book makes two major contributions to the field of of Black-Palestinian solidarity: first, a nuanced understanding of politics and second, an insistence on the significance of the historical moment. Resonances with today's headlines fill the book.Fischbach's historically driven narrative stands at the cutting edge of scholarship on the Black Power movement."—Elizabeth Bishop, Journal of Palestine Studies"Black Power and Palestine is history at its best. Well-researched and interesting to read, it attests to the long-term impact that grass-roots activists can have, though it may not be recognised at the time. Fischbach delves into the recent past to elucidate a pivotal time and issue that still has prime relevance today."—Sally Bland, The Jordan Times"Black Power and Palestine makes a crucial intervention by excavating a rather forgotten history that undermines any notion of a timeless American consensus over U.S. Middle East policy and proposes a genealogy of the opposition to the occupation of the Palestinian territories and the treatment of Palestinians there and in the diaspora."—Oz Frankel, American Historical ReviewBlack Power and Palestine is a remarkable and timely study about solidarity between the struggle of African Americans and Palestinian Resistance. This well- researched study is in ten chapters, with a prologue, epilogue, and extensive notes. Although the struggle of African Americans has been acknowledged by scholars, black affiliations with Palestinians have not received scholarly attention. Black Power and Palestine fills the gap in the literature about the mutual connections between the two struggles."—Arab Studies QuarterlyTable of Contents1. Black Internationalism: Malcolm X and the Rise of Global Solidarity 2. The Fire This Time: SNCC, Jews, and the Demise of the Beloved Community 3. Reformers, Not Revolutionaries: The NAACP, Bayard Rustin, and Israel 4. Balanced and Guarded: Martin Luther King Jr. on the Arab-Israeli Tightrope 5. The Power of Words: The Black Arts Movement and a New Narrative 6. Struggle and Revolution: The Black Panthers and the Guerrilla Image 7. Middle East Symbiosis: Israelis, Arabs, and African Americans 8. Red, White, and Black: Communists, Guerrillas, and the Black Mainstream 9. A Seat at the Table: Bayard Rustin, Andrew Young, and Black Foreign Policy 10. Looking over Jordan: Joseph Lowery, Jesse Jackson, and Yasir Arafat

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Book SynopsisFor centuries, Persian was the language of power and learning across Central, South, and West Asia, and Persians received a particular basic education through which they understood and engaged with the world. Not everyone who lived in the land of Iran was Persian, and Persians lived in many other lands as well. Thus to be Persian was to be embedded in a set of connections with people we today consider members of different groups. Persianate selfhood encompassed a broader range of possibilities than contemporary nationalist claims to place and origin allow. We cannot grasp these older connections without historicizing our conceptions of difference and affiliation. Mana Kia sketches the contours of a larger Persianate world, historicizing place, origin, and selfhood through its tradition of proper form: adab. In this shared culture, proximities and similarities constituted a logic that distinguished between people while simultaneously accommodating plurality. Adab was the basis of cohesion for self and community over the turbulent eighteenth century, as populations dispersed and centers of power shifted, disrupting the circulations that linked Persianate regions. Challenging the bases of protonationalist community, Persianate Selves seeks to make sense of an earlier transregional Persianate culture outside the anachronistic shadow of nationalisms. Trade Review"Few questions are more vexed in the study of early modern Asia, with evidence more evanescent, than how people identified before nationalism. Drawing on dozens of Persian texts, Mana Kia scrutinizes their conceptions of place, movement, memory, lineage, origins, and onomastics to denaturalize the nationalist ties between land and language. Persianate Selves is an invaluable vade mecum for navigating the transregional Persianate past." -- Nile Green * editor of The Persianate World: The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca *"Persianate Selves disturbs our national imaginaries and challenges the way we write Persianate history. Instead of dynastic, ethnic, and blood bound categories, we encounter kindred voices who embody Persianate adab and reveal multiple experiences of place. Whether one contests or agrees, we will all have to engage with the different terms of analysis Mana Kia offers in this pioneering work." -- Kathryn Babayan * University of Michigan *"Persianate Selves traverses a now-vanished cosmopolitan world and suggests a fascinating new approach to conceptualizing a shared cultural space. This engaging book is sure to generate considerable discussion among scholars interested in the intellectual cultures of the world before the nationalist divide." -- Muzaffar Alam * University of Chicago *"Besides its scholarly contribution, Persianate Selves is an indispensable and highly recommended book for world leaders, policymakers and anyone interested in curing their monological ways of thinking about Islamic pasts." -- Aqsa Ijaz * Dawn *"In dislodging protonationalist categories in the understanding of affiliation, belonging, and selfhood, Kia offers sharp analytic tools for rethinking what it meant to be Persian before the rise of nationalism." -- Alireza Doostdar * Critical Inquiry *"Dissecting notions of home, landscape, kinship and memory, Kia provides us with a radically new framework for understanding Persianate culture. ... An excellent scholarly study worthy of close study for anyone looking to make sense of our past and present." -- Usman Butt * The New Arab *"Mana Kia's book is a rich and multilayered contribution to the scholarship that addresses questions of cosmopolitanism and hybridity, the possibilities of selves and collectives, the relevance of place and origin in the language ideologies, and the cultural and linguistic meanings people endow to physical spaces. ... The book itself is a beautiful ode to symbiosis, lineage and learning in the making of a cultural self." -- Irena Grigoryan * Journal of Belonging, Identity, Language, and Diversity *"Kia's subtle reconstructions of eighteenth-century Persian ways of belonging should provoke anyone engaged with the textual legacies of adab to read with eyes unblinkered by nationalism." -- Prashant Keshavmurthy * International Journal of Middle East Studies *"Persianate Selves... is novel in its use of Derridean deconstruction to distill shared forms of belonging and affiliation during the political disarray of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Kia is part of a growing and important chorus of scholars who are questioning primordialist conceptualizations of identity by challenging widely held assumptions that Persian is a language that has always belonged to Iran or that its use in India was a foreign import, out of place and unnatural. More broadly, Kia's work holds a mirror up to historians of precolonial contexts, encouraging us to think more carefully about the fundamental conceptual and descriptive language that we use to describe how people inhabited those worlds." -- Naveena Naqvi * History and Theory *

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Book SynopsisThis book offers the first critical engagement with the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa. Challenging conventional wisdom on the origins and contemporary dynamics of capitalism in the region, these cutting-edge essays demonstrate how critical political economy can illuminate both historical and contemporary dynamics of the region and contribute to wider political economy debates from the vantage point of the Middle East. Leading scholars, representing several disciplines, contribute both thematic and country-specific analyses. Their writings critically examine major issues in political economy—notably, the mutual constitution of states, markets, and classes; the co-constitution of class, race, gender, and other forms of identity; varying modes of capital accumulation and the legal, political, and cultural forms of their regulation; relations among local, national, and global forms of capital, class, and culture; technopolitics; the role of war in the constitution of states and classes; and practices and cultures of domination and resistance. Visit politicaleconomyproject.org for additional media and learning resources.Trade Review"A thorough and timely collection of essays by some of the top practitioners of Middle East political economy, this book lays bare the human insecurity that is at the root of much of the discontent in the region."—James Gelvin, University of California, Los Angeles"This new canonical text will open pathways for research and make the job of educators infinitely easier by reasserting the enduring value of political economy. For too long scholarship has been enchanted by the shibboleths of orientalism and modernization theory—now there is a better way. A tour de force synthesis."—Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, California State University, StanislausTable of ContentsIntroduction —Joel Beinin 1. Landed Property, Capital Accumulation, and Polymorphous Capitalism: Egypt —Kristen Alff 2. State, Market, and Class: Egypt, Syria, and Tunisia —Max Ajl, Bassam Haddad, and Zeinab Abul-Magd 3. Ten Propositions on Oil —Timothy Mitchell 4. Regional Militaries and the Global Military-Industrial Complex —Shana Marshall 5. Rethinking Class and State in the Gulf Cooperation Council —Adam Hanieh 6. Capitalism in Egypt, Not Egyptian Capitalism —Aaron Jakes and Ahmad Shokr 7. State, Oil, and War in the Formation of Iraq —Nida Alahmad 8. Colonial Capitalism and Imperial Myth in French North Africa —Muriam Haleh Davis 9. Lebanon Beyond Exceptionalism —Ziad M. Abu-Rish 10. The US-Israeli Alliance —Joel Beinin 11. Repercussions of Colonialism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories —Samia Al-Botmeh

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Book SynopsisA biography of the "Cinderella" of Egyptian cinema—the veneration and rumors that surrounded an unparalleled career, and the gendered questions that unsettled Egyptian society. Layla Murad (1918-1995) was once the highest-paid star in Egypt, and her movies were among the top-grossing in the box office. She starred in 28 films, nearly all now classics in Arab musical cinema. In 1955 she was forced to stop acting—and struggled for decades for a comeback. Today, even decades after her death, public interest in her life continues, and new generations of Egyptians still love her work. Unknown Past recounts Murad's extraordinary life—and the rapid political and sociocultural changes she witnessed. Hanan Hammad writes a story centered on Layla Murad's persona and legacy, and broadly framed around a gendered history of twentieth-century Egypt. Murad was a Jew who converted to Islam in the shadow of the first Arab-Israeli war. Her career blossomed under the Egyptian monarchy and later gave a singing voice to the Free Officers and the 1952 Revolution. The definitive end of her cinematic career came under Nasser on the eve of the 1956 Suez War. Egyptians have long told their national story through interpretations of Murad's life, intertwining the individual and Egyptian state and society to better understand Egyptian identity. As Unknown Past recounts, there's no life better than Murad's to reflect the tumultuous changes experienced over the dramatic decades of the mid-twentieth century.Trade Review"A fascinating and fun read, Unknown Past carefully documents Layla's story, fills voids, and makes important interventions into debates on her life and legacy. Just as Layla's life was bigger than the screen, this book goes beyond the history of cinema to illuminate questions about religion, society, gender, and politics."—Beth Baron, The Graduate Center and City College, City University of New York, author of The Orphan Scandal"Bringing together biography and history, Unknown Past examines transformations in midcentury Egypt through the life of the hugely popular Layla Murad. Unraveling rumors and debunking myths, Hanan Hammad draws attention to the social pressures Murad faced as a working woman, as a Jew, as a wife, and as a mother."—Deborah Starr, Cornell University, author of Togo Mizrahi and the Making of Egyptian Cinema"Unknown Past is meticulously researched and vividly written. Hanan Hammad unpacks, in a careful, clear-headed, and brave manner, all the myths surrounding Egypt's beloved star Layla Murad, from her career's entanglement in the Arab-Israel conflict to her premature retirement. An essential read."—Ted Swedenburg, University of Arkansas, editor of Palestine, Israel, and the Politics of Popular Culture"Unknown Past: Layla Murad, the Jewish-Muslim Star of Egypt is a descriptively compelling and detailed account of the life and work of a culturally, artistically, and politically influential Egyptian woman through modern Egypt's complicated and perilous times. A consummate work of impeccable scholarship, no Egyptian Cinema or 20th Century Egyptian Biography collection would be complete or comprehensive without the inclusion of a copy of Unknown Past." -Julie Summers, Reviewer's Bookwatch"This is the kind of book any aspiring scholar should want to write at least once during their career: Hammad both lucidly engages relevant academic literature and tells a fascinating story for nonspecialist readers new to one of the dizzying number of disciplines into which she intervenes."—Abe Silberstein, Cineaste"[Unknown Past is] a story not only about religion and ethnicity in the Arab world, but also one about how being female can amplify the effects of being a minority in a society that is not as 'modern' as it prides itself on being."—Lauren Hakimi, The Forward"This engaging text sheds new light on old questions and provides greater depth to this Golden Age star.... Ultimately, readers see Murad as a complex, multidimensional individual—acelebrity, wife, lover, mother, and businesswoman. Recommended."—M. L. Russell, CHOICETable of ContentsIntroduction: Why Layla Murad? 1. The Schoolgirl: Making Layla Murad 2. The Country Girl: Branding Layla Murad 3. Adam and Eve: Interfaith Family, Fame, and Gossip 4. The Blow of Fate: The Politics of Boycotting Israel 5. The Unknown Lover: Layla Murad and the Free Officer 6. The Starling of the Valley: Remembering Layla Murad Conclusion: Can an Egyptian Be a Single Mother and a Jew?

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Book SynopsisTens of thousands of Palestinians migrated to the Americas in the final decades of the nineteenth century and early decades of the twentieth. By 1936, an estimated 40,000 Palestinians lived outside geographic Palestine. Transnational Palestine is the first book to explore the history of Palestinian immigration to Latin America, the struggles Palestinian migrants faced to secure Palestinian citizenship in the interwar period, and the ways in which these challenges contributed to the formation of a Palestinian diaspora and to the emergence of Palestinian national consciousness. Nadim Bawalsa considers the migrants' strategies for economic success in the diaspora, for preserving their heritage, and for resisting British mandate legislation, including citizenship rejections meted out to thousands of Palestinian migrants. They did this in newspapers, social and cultural clubs and associations, political organizations and committees, and in hundreds of petitions and pleas delivered to local and international governing bodies demanding justice for Palestinian migrants barred from Palestinian citizenship. As this book shows, Palestinian political consciousness developed as a thoroughly transnational process in the first half of the twentieth century—and the first articulation of a Palestinian right of return emerged well before 1948.Trade Review"A significant contribution to the history of Palestinian transnational activism. Anchoring his story in the lives of Palestinians in Latin America, Nadim Bawalsa amplifies the diasporic dimension of the 'right of return.' A must read for scholar-activists of the modern Middle East, inter-war politics, and national liberation struggles."—Sarah M.A. Gualtieri, author of Arab Routes: Pathways to Syrian California"Transnational Palestine is an extensive and original investigation into the lives of early Palestinian migrants in Latin America. Nadim Bawalsa has an uncanny ability to evoke from submerged archival sources and diaspora presses the adventures and tribulations of those pioneering travelers."—Salim Tamari, author of The Great War and the Remaking of Palestine"Bawalsa succeeds in widening the reader's temporal and geographical horizons when thinking about the right of return, and in doing so, he helps us to better understand the Palestinians history of dispossession."—Marc Martorell Junyent, Mondoweiss"Transnational Palestine tells of the painful struggle of loyal sons and daughters of Palestine against Britain's theft of their national identity, decades before 1948, the first group of marooned, stateless, Palestinian exiles. It's a story of British perfidy and Palestinian persistence, which Bawalsa says no previous book has told. Moreover, he shows how the dogged and sophisticated resistance campaign of these Palestinians contributed to their nation's political organization and identity formation during the British Mandate period."—Steve France, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs"Nadim Bawalsa's Transnational Palestine is a significant contribution to the history of Mandate Palestine, and illuminates the role of British citizenship laws in the dispossession of Palestinians. By exposing the ways Palestinians living abroad (referred to as the mahjar) were denied citizenship by the British Empire during their mandate over Palestine, Bawalsa effectively reframes the fight for right of return of Palestinians both historically and geographically, and reveals its emergence as a response to British imperial governance Transnational Palestine underscores citizenship as a tool in settler colonial projects where relationship to land does not guarantee rights within it or to it."—Randa Tawil, International Journal of Middle East Studies"Through a treasure trove of documents, including applications, appeals, protests and personal correspondence, Bawalsa reveals the relentless struggle of overseas Palestinians, who were torn between their new-found prosperity and peace in the Americas, and their roots in a homeland on the cusp of slipping away."—Omar Ahmed, Middle East Monitor

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Book SynopsisThis book is the first study of political and legal thinking about the partitions of India and Palestine in 1947. The chapters in the volume, authored by leading scholars of partition, draw attention to the pathways of peoples, geographic spaces, colonial policies, laws, and institutions that connect them from the vantage point of those most engaged by the process: political actors, party activists, jurists, diplomats, philosophers, and international representatives from the Middle East, South Asia, and beyond. Additionally, the volume investigates some of the underlying causes of partition in both places such as the hardening of religious fault-lines, majoritarian politics, and the failure to construct viable forms of government in deeply divided societies.Trade Review'This fascinating essay collection offers systematic analysis of partition in India and Palestine as processes connected through supranational politics, international law, and transnational networks. Thought provoking, often harrowing and always original, the essays collected here make essential reading for anyone interested in where partitions fit within global decolonisation.' Martin Thomas, University of Exeter'An expert team of authors assembled by Victor Kattan and Amit Rajan have produced an original book on the momentous years of 1947 and 1948 in the Indian subcontinent and Palestine. By showing how partition failed to resolve the nationality ‘problems’ it was designed to solve, the multi-scalar analyses in The breakup of India and Palestine demonstrate how the seeds were sown for the illiberal majoritarian democracies there today. A brilliant achievement.' A. Dirk Moses, Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the Colin Powell School for Civic and International Leadership at the City College of New York, CUNY -- .Table of ContentsForeword by Lucy ChesterAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Connecting the partitions of India and Palestine: institutions, policies, laws and people – Victor Kattan and Amit RanjanPart I The partition of British India1 The Mountbatten Viceroyalty reconsidered: personality, prestige and strategic vision in the partition of India – Ian Talbot2 The paradigmatic partition? The Pakistan demand revisited – Ayesha JalalPart II The partition of Palestine3 Partition and the question of international governance: the 1947 United Nations Special Committee on Palestine – Laura Robson4 Fighting for Palestine as a holy duty? The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the partition of Palestine in 1947 – Mohamed-Ali AdraouiPart III The partitions of India and Palestine compared5 The communal question and partition in British India and mandate Palestine – Amrita Shodhan6 India’s dilemmas of pragmatism v. principles: Nehru’s preference for a partitioned India but a federal Palestine – P. R. KumaraswamyPart IV The consequences of partition for South Asia, the Middle East and beyond7 The partitions of India and Palestine and the dawn of majority rule in Africa and Asia – Victor Kattan8 ‘Unfinished’ partition: territorial disputes, unequal citizens and the rise of majoritarian nationalism in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – Amit Ranjan9 Civil war, total war or a war of partition? Reassessing the 1948 war in Palestine from a global perspective – Arie M. Dubnov10 Partitioned identities? Regional, caste and national identity in Pakistan – Iqbal Singh SeveaAfterword: Partition as imperial inheritance – Penny Sinanoglou

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Book SynopsisThe bloody eight-year Iran-Iraq war is now almost forgotten, overshadowed by the subsequent Gulf War and Iraq War. However, it is best remembered for the unique so-called 'Tanker War' which threatened to strangle the world's oil supplies. At the time Tucker-Jones as a defence analyst wrote extensively on the war and now brings his expertise to bear with this account of a conflict fuelled by festering regional rivalries, the Cold War and the emerging threat posed by militant Shia Islam. Fought on land, at sea and in the air using some of the most modern weapons money could buy, Western-backed Saddam Hussein's Sunni Iraq and Shia Iran under the ayatollahs fought themselves to a standstill. Once Saddam's armoured blitzkrieg had been halted and Iran's human-wave counterattacks fought off, it became a war of attrition with major battles fought for the possession of Khorramshahr and Basra. Both sides resorted to chemical weapons and bombarding each other with missiles. When the war spilled over into the waters of the Gulf it sparked open Western intervention. Escalating attacks on oil tankers finally culminated in a ceasefire.

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Book SynopsisIn the mild climate of the Mediterranean, a rare blossom once bloomed: aprosperous, urbanised society inhabited by various ethnic and religious groups livingharmoniously together for nearly two-hundred years. At the apex of this society, ruleda feudal elite notorious for its wealth and love of luxury. It was composed of politicallysavvy, diplomatically adept, well-educated and multilingual men and women.These women played an astonishing and indispensable role in shaping the characterof their unique society. They were ruling queens, independent barons, nuns andpilgrims. They were merchants and artisans, diplomats and spies. They werewarriors defending besieged cities and the most pitiful victims of conflict as slavesafter a defeat.While many primary sources readily recorded specific and noteworthy actions takenby individual women, there is no comprehensive or systematic description ofwomen's contribution to the life and society of Outremer. All we have are fragmentsof a mosaic badly da

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Book SynopsisIn March 2022, Michael Palin travelled the length of the River Tigris through Iraq to get a sense of what life is like in a region of the world that once formed the cradle of civilisation, but that in recent times has witnessed turmoil and appalling bloodshed. In the journal he kept during his trip he describes the war-ravaged city of Mosul and the children he encounters growing up amid its ruins. He contemplates the graffiti-strewn ruins of Saddam Hussein's former palaces, and he notes the constant presence of armed guards. But there are patches of light amid the dark: boisterous New Year celebrations in Akre, the friendliness of generals and colonels at 'Checkpoint Cheerful', and public poetry readings in Baghdad. People getting on with their lives.At the same time, Michael charts the course of one of the great rivers of the world, showing how the water that gave life to such ancient settlements as Babylon and Ur is now becoming a scarce and hotly contested resource. And he considers the role that Iraq's other great natural resource - oil - plays in both providing wealth and threatening political stability.Illustrated throughout with colour photographs taken on the trip, and permeated with his warmth and humour, this is a vivid and varied portrait of a complex country.Trade ReviewA fantastic book. -- Nihal Arthanayake * BBC 5Live *

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Book SynopsisA FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "Powerful, important, and searing." -General David Petraeus, U.S. Army (ret.), former commander, U.S. Central Command, former CIA directorIn 2015, the White House claimed triumphantly "the longest war in American history is over." But for some, it was just the beginning of a new and covert war, fought far from public view, with limited resources, little governmental oversight, and contradictory orders.Take Hutch, a battle-worn Green Beret on his fifth combat tour in 2015, tasked with a high-stakes mission: lead a small band of men into Kunduz, recapture the city from the Taliban, and turn it over to the Afghan government. The U.S. role was meant to be a secret-after all, the war was over. Then, disaster struck. He called in an airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital, killing dozens of doctors and patients.Or Caleb, who stepped on a bomb during a raid on a Taliban hideout in notorious Sangin. Or Andy, trapped in Marjah with a crashed Black Hawk and no air support. From Hutch to Caleb to Andy, Eagle Down is a dramatic and intimate portrayal of this ongoing forgotten war that moves from the desperate battlegrounds in muddy Afghan villages all the way to the White House.Pulitzer Prize Finalist Jessica Donati, with big picture insight and on-the-ground grit, reveals how America came to rely on U.S. Special Forces, through successive policy directives that ramped up the war under the Obama and Trump administrations. Donati shows how the covert war failed to stabilize Afghanistan, and undermined U.S. interests both at home and abroad.Relying on Donati's daring on-the-ground reporting, first-hand accounts from Special Forces, military documents, and declassified reports, Eagle Down is an account of the heroism, sacrifice, and tragedy experienced by those that fought America's longest war.

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Book SynopsisThe 3rd Afghan War in 1919 was the only time that the Afghans invaded British India during Britain’s long history of conflict in Afghanistan and along the North-West Frontier. It was a campaign that cost the lives of well over 1,000 British and Indian troops.This is the story of an unknown action of this little-known war, an aircraft crash and rescue. An aircraft of 20 Sqn RAF was lost, whilst investigating a gathering of tribesman. The crew were rescued and the majority of the aircraft was recovered by members of the Kurram Militia and 22 Battery Motor Machine Gun Service. It was an all-arms action – the lives of 2 airmen were saved at the cost of an Indian Militiaman and an unknown number of Afghan tribesmen. Above all it is an action which typifies the experience of a virtually unknown group of soldiers, 22 Battery of the Motor Machine Gun Service. They had volunteered to serve as Motor Machine Gunners in France, had been through an intense and very competitive selection process, frequently expending considerable sums of their own money just to attend selection interviews, and had suddenly found themselves despatched half way round the globe to the heat, dust, snows and monsoons of India and the North-West Frontier.This book looks at the background to the conflict, the Kurram Militia, the history of the squadron and the lives of the key players. Whilst this was not the only action the 22 Battery of the Motor Machine Gun Service fought during the 3rd Afghan War, this one was recorded in the account of A/Sjt Ernest ‘Bill’ Macro, who was in charge of the section of 22 Battery despatched to Badama Post in late July 1919. This is his story, and the stories of the other men for whom the climax of their experience in the 3rd Afghan War came during the action at Badama Post.Trade Review'Definitely worth a read.' * Cross and Cockade *

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Book SynopsisA bold call for the American Left to extend their politics to the issues of Israel-Palestine, from a New York Times bestselling author and an expert on U.S. policy in the region In this major work of daring criticism and analysis, scholar and political commentator Marc Lamont Hill and Israel-Palestine expert Mitchell Plitnick spotlight how holding fast to one-sided and unwaveringly pro-Israel policies reflects the truth-bending grip of authoritarianism on both Israel and the United States. Except for Palestine deftly argues that progressives and liberals who oppose regressive policies on immigration, racial justice, gender equality, LGBTQ rights, and other issues must extend these core principles to the oppression of Palestinians. In doing so, the authors take seriously the political concerns and well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians, demonstrating the extent to which U.S. policy has made peace harder to attain. They also unravel the conflation of advocacy for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel. Hill and Plitnick provide a timely and essential intervention by examining multiple dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conversation, including Israel's growing disdain for democracy, the effects of occupation on Palestine, the siege of Gaza, diminishing American funding for Palestinian relief, and the campaign to stigmatize any critique of Israeli occupation. Except for Palestine is a searing polemic and a cri de coeur for elected officials, activists, and everyday citizens alike to align their beliefs and politics with their values.Trade ReviewPraise for Except for Palestine:Winner of the Palestine Book Awards” Counter Current Award“A remarkable little book. . . . Except for Palestine should be read by anyone interested in events in Israel/Palestine—and obviously in particular, anyone claiming to be progressive and liberal.”—Palestine Chronicle “[A] principled cri de coeur to progressives everywhere. . . . Except for Palestine is a crucial and ultimately hopeful tool that better equips progressives to combat injustices within their own political circles.”—Mondoweiss“For too long, many have championed the rights and liberties of oppressed peoples here and abroad, but remained silent on Palestinian freedom, or even worse, supported U.S. policies that render Palestinian humanity and suffering invisible. This clear and courageous book is a clarion call for moral integrity and political consistency.”—Cornel West, Union Theological Seminary“Hill and Plitnick deliver a thoughtful and incisive analysis of how progressive commitments to racial and social justice are undermined by the ‘Palestinian exception.’ Building the civil rights movement for the twenty-first century in America requires an international intersectionality that necessarily includes advocating for the rights and dignity of Palestinians and Israelis alike. Except for Palestine is timely and vital.”—Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Michigan’s 13th Congressional District“Except for Palestine calls on progressives to apply the same principles to Israel-Palestine that they apply to the U.S. It’s a simple, radical, and deeply important argument, which anyone who cherishes justice should not ignore.”—Peter Beinart, author of The Crisis of Zionism “Hill and Plitnick have produced a timely and powerful indictment of decades of U.S. policy exceptionalizing Israel at the expense of progressive values. Their thorough examination of American progressives’ intellectual and moral hypocrisy when it comes to defending Palestinians’ human rights, civil rights, and right to challenge Israeli occupation is a valuable resource.”—Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace“This book explores some of the most fundamental contradictions confronting liberal spaces in the U.S. and makes a powerful case for the progressive core values of humanity, justice, and dignity to finally include the Palestinian people.”—Ahmad Abuznaid, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights“Except for Palestine cogently explores the reasons for the silence of so many progressives and liberals when it comes to the unceasing violations of the rights of the Palestinian people. Hill and Plitnick dismantle one by one the arguments used to justify this shameful silence, and in doing so provide an eloquent, balanced, and hard-hitting analysis of why ending an egregious exception to accepted norms of justice and equality is so imperative.”—Rashid Khalidi, author of Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East“A timely and compelling treatise on the moral failings of U.S. policy and American politics in relation to Israel/Palestine.”—Khaled Elgindy, Responsible Statecraft “An accessible, in-depth analysis that takes U.S. politics to task for normalising both Israel’s colonial violence and, as a result, the oppression of the Palestinian people.”—Middle East Monitor

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Book SynopsisThe everyday practices, policy ideas, and ideological and political battles that have shaped Egyptian education, from the era of nation-building in the twentieth century to the age of digital disruption in the twenty-firstFrom the 1952 revolution onward, a main purpose of formal education in Egypt was to socialize children and youth into adopting certain attitudes and behaviors conducive to the regimes in power. Control by the state over education was never entirely hegemonic. National education came increasingly under pressure due to a combination of the growing privatization of the education sector, the growth of political Islam, and rapidly changing digital technologies.Educating Egypt traces the everyday practices, policy ideas, and ideological and political and economic contests over education from the era of nation-building in the twentieth century to the age of global change and digital disruption in the twenty-first. Its overarching theme is that schooling and education, broadly defined, have consistently mirrored larger debates about what constitutes the model citizen and the educated person. Drawing on three decades of ethnographic research inside Egyptian schools and among Egyptian youth, Linda Herrera asks what happens when education actors harbor fundamentally different ideas about the purpose, provision, and meaning of education. Her research shows that, far from serving as a unifying social force, education is in reality an ongoing battleground of interests, ideas, and visions of the good society.Trade Review"A collection of studies conducted over the last 30 years by the preeminent American scholar of education in Egypt, this book paints an evocative portrait of the educational philosophies, institutions, and practices that have so poorly equipped Egyptian young people for the world they encounter as adults."—Foreign Affairs“[A] gem of a book in the expanding literature on the sociology of education and civic values in Egypt and the MENA region.”—Contemporary Sociology"[E]ngages some of the most difficult issues facing Egyptian students, parents, teachers, and state officials as this critical sector struggles under the accumulated weight of failed policies promoted by both Egyptian officials and international development 'experts.'”—Laurie A. Brand, Political Science Quarterly"[A] valuable and timely contribution to the small but expanding literature that views education as a way to understand societal structures and imaginaries and how they change."—Die Welt des Islams"A seminal work of original, informative, insightful, and thought-provoking scholarship. Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, Educating Egypt will be of particular interest to students of modern Egyptian political, educational, and cultural history."—Midwest Book Review"What makes this book important is the breadth and depth of the research. Combining ethnography and oral history with critical analysis of educational policies, laws, textbooks, and school curricula, Herrera offers a detailed, comprehensive study of educational policy in modern Egypt."—Khaled Fahmy, University of Cambridge"This book steers a skillful route through the complexity of education in Egypt, but it does more than that. It deals with the complexity of Egyptian society in general, against the background of mass poverty, high levels of unemployment, the digital divide, the country's geopolitical location, and long standing mores with respect to gender and other social relations. These all impinge on the education of Egyptian children, youth, and especially girls as Educating Egypt's thick ethnographic descriptions show. I cannot think of any better 'foreigner' than Linda Herrera, who lived and studied in Egypt, to carry out the task of researching all of the above. This volume proves me right."—Peter Mayo, University of MaltaTable of ContentsList of Figures and TablesAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Educating Egypt: From Nation Building to Digital DisruptionPart 1: Schooling the Nation: Inside a Girls’ Preparatory School1: An Ethnographer’s Orientation2: Schooling Citizens3: Educating Girls4: Teachers of The Nation5: Grade FeverPart 2: Political Islam and Education6: The Islamist Wave and Education Markets7: Experiments in Counter-Nationalism8: DownveilingPart 3: Youth in a Changing Global Order9: Education, Empire, and Global Citizenship10: Young Egyptians’ Quest for Jobs and Justice11: Youth and Citizenship in the Digital Age: A View from Egypt12: It’s Time to Talk about Youth in the Middle East as “The Precariat’Part 4: Conclusions and Future Directions13: Is the School as We Know it on its Way to Extinction?NotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisThe gripping history of the devastation and resurrection of the Marshes of Iraq, an environmental treasure of the Middle East, now a protected site The Mesopotamian Marshes in southern Iraq, once the largest wetland system on the planet, have been inhabited for thousands of years by the Madan, or Marsh Arabs, but they remain remote, isolated, and virtually unknown. In the early 1990s, the Saddam Hussein regime drained the Marshes and set out to destroy not only a critical ecosystem but a unique way of life as well. It stands as one of the greatest environmental and humanitarian disasters of the twentieth century. In the wake of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, local residents destroyed the earthen dams built to divert water from the wetlands and the Marshes were reflooded. Their future, however, is in peril. The Ghosts of Iraq's Marshes tells the history of the creation, destruction, and revitalization of the Marshes and their inhabitants against the ba

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Book SynopsisWithout Borders: The Haqqani Network and the Road to Kabul is the untold story of the origins, political awakening, and rise of what the United States and its allies call the Haqqani Network, and what the Haqqani family calls the Haqqani Mujahideen. The author lived with the Haqqanis as a young reporter for the New York Times in the 1980s, in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, when they were America's allies in the Afghan-Soviet war. After 9/11, the network became America's enemy. This book tells the exciting story of how the author began to try to find the Haqqanis again, and, later, his quest to understand their influence in the greater Middle East. This is the story of the rise of an ideology and movement born in the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1258, which resurfaced in Arabia and India in the 18th Century, lived on in the anti-Christian, anti-British, anti-European, and anti-Russian colonial movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, and in modern times evolved, with American help, into the Haqqani Mujahideen and their allies and followers around the world.

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Book SynopsisWritten by the refugees themselves, this highly original anthology of Palestinians forced to live outside their homeland brings together stories of what it means to be exiled, reflections on the events that led to being displaced, and the raw experience of daily life in a camp.The 11 lives given voice here are unique, each an expression of the myriad displacements that war and occupation have forced upon Palestinians since the Nakba of 1948. At the same time, they form a collective testament of a people driven from their homes and land by colonial occupation. Each story is singular; and each tells the story of all Palestinians.As Edward Said argued in 1984, the object of Israel’s colonial warfare is not only material—seeking to minimise Palestinian existence as such—but is also a narrative project that aims to obliterate Palestinian history “as possessed of a coherent narrative direction pointed towards self-determination.”In these pages, Palestinian refugees narrate their own histories. The product of a creative-writing workshop organized by the Institute for Palestine Studies in Lebanon, 11 Lives tells of children’s adventures in the alleyways of refugee camps, of teenage martyrs and ghosts next-door, of an UNRWA teacher’s dismay at the shallowness of her colleagues, and of the love, labour, and land that form the threads of a red keffiyeh.What unites these 11 stories is “the inadmissible existence of the Palestinian people” highlighted by Said. Their words persist, as one contributor writes, “between the Nakba and the Naksa, throughout defeats and massacres, love affairs and revolutions.” The stories of Palestinians in exile are also open-ended, and will continue to reverberate across borders until Palestine is free.With contributions by: Nadia Fahed, Intisar Hajaj, Yafa Talal El-Masri, Youssef Naanaa, Ruba Rahme, Hanin Mohammad Rashid, Mira Sidawi, Wedad Taha, Salem Yassin, Taha Younis, Mahmoud Mohammad ZeidanCo-published with the Institute of Palestine Studies.Trade Review“Vivid accounts of a world we know too little about.” — Caryl Churchill, playwright“In these rich, authentic stories from the Palestinian refugees of Lebanon there are the expected tales of courage and fear, war and expulsion, of longing for the lost homeland and the bitterness of family separations. But there's also the sweetness of romantic love, the playfulness of children, the strength and warmth of family bonds and the ever present hope of better lives to come. This is a book of remarkable lives, written by remarkable people, whose stories are to savour.” — Elizabeth Laird, children’s fiction and travel writer“The book is truly delightful. The stories are well-written, highly diverse in style, tone, and genre, but all thoroughly enjoyable, and often very moving. Stories about contemporary Palestinians are few and far between in English, let alone stories told in—and by—non-elite, diasporic Palestinian voices. The volume brings a vibrancy and vitality to these stories that reminds the reader of the multitudinous experience of Palestinian refugees, and of the dynamic tectonics of Palestinian lives in diaspora. In Khalidi's skilled hands, this volume is an important and welcome contribution to Palestinian stories in English specifically, and to Arabic literature in English translation more broadly.” — Ghenwa Hayek, Associate Professor of Modern Arabic Literature, University of Chicago“This marvelous book lifts the veil of anonymity that has long concealed the reality of refugees, not as UN statistics, but as human beings with stories to tell.”— Ghada Karmi, Palestinian doctor, writer, and Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter“The triumph of this unique book is how it manages to unite the indomitable spirit of Palestinian survival with the transformative potential of first-person narratives. 11 Lives is a deeply humane, precisely detailed, and intimately drawn collection of refugee stories that reveals more about life as a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon—with all the major pitfalls, daily joys, and absolute steadfastness—than any newspaper report, academic treatise, or NGO study ever could. ”—Moustafa Bayoumi, award winning author of The Muslim American Life"11 Lives offers an assiduous, kaleidoscopic look at life for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon against the tide of a literary supply-chain that demands extractive and paternalistic refugee stories, seldom written by refugees themselves.” —Mohammed El-Kurd, Palestinian writer and poet

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Book SynopsisWhy did Hamas attack? What is Israel trying to achieve? Did this catastrophe have to happen? And is there a way forward? The book’s expert contributors address these and other questions, which have never been more urgent. In September 2023, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan boasted that the Middle East “is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” One week later, unprecedented violence in Gaza and Israel shattered the status quo and shocked the world. Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Deluge punctured delusions of stability as hundreds of militants burst forth from the Gaza prison camp. In the ensuing carnage and firefights, 1,200 Israelis were killed and hundreds more taken hostage. Israel’s retaliation turned the besieged enclave into a howling wasteland. Nearly 30,000 people were killed in four months, including more than 12,000 children, and over 60 percent of homes were damaged or destroyed. Israel targeted the wounded and infirm, newborns and near-dead, as Gaza’s healthcare system—hospitals, clinics, ambulances, medical personnel—came under a systematic attack unprecedented in the annals of modern warfare. The Hamas massacre and the genocidal Israeli campaign which followed together mark a historic turning point in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The reverberations have also shaken politics far beyond, not least in Europe and the United States, where gigantic, round-the-clock protests for Palestinian rights pitted politicians against the public and exposed a growing statist authoritarianism. In this groundbreaking book—the first published about the 2023 Gaza war—leading Palestinian, Israeli, and international authorities put these momentous developments in context and provide an initial taking-stock. Contributors: Musa Abuhashhash, Ahmed Alnaouq, Nathan J. Brown, Yaniv Cogan, Clare Daly MEP, Talal Hangari, Khaled Hroub, R. J., Colter Louwerse, Mitchell Plitnick, Mouin Rabbani, Sara Roy, and Avi Shlaim

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Book SynopsisCities, scripts, literature, the rule of law – all were born in Iraq. That so many see this ancient land as nothing more than a violent backwater steeped in chaos is a travesty. This is the place where, for the first 5,000 years of human history, all innovations of worth emerged. It was the cradle of civilization. In this unrivalled study, John Robertson details the greatness and grandeur of Iraq’s achievements, the brutality and magnificence of its ancient empires and its extraordinary contributions to the world. The only work in the English language to explore the history of the land of two rivers in its entirety, it takes readers from the seminal advances of its Neolithic inhabitants to the aftermath of the American and British-led invasion, the rise of Islamic State and Iraq today. A fascinating and thought-provoking analysis, it is sure to be greatly appreciated by historians, students and all those with an interest in this diverse and enigmatic country. This paperback edition features a new epilogue, bringing the work up to date and looking ahead to Iraq’s future.Trade Review'A fresh and lively discussion of Iraq's 6,000-year history'. * Middle East Journal *‘There is much to be learnt from this prodigious record of human achievement in the cradle of civilisation.’ * Sunday Times *‘John Robertson’s magnificent Iraq: A History takes a truly long perspective. From the first Sumerian cities over 5,000 years ago, via the great empires of Assyria, Babylonia and Abbasid Baghdad, to the modern Iraqi state, he shows how this complex past has always shaped, and been shaped by, contemporary political concerns.’ * History Today, Best Books of 2015 *'Considering its huge span of 6,000 years, the book is surprisingly unhurried...Robertson is never a prisoner of chronology and always finds time for useful asides'. * Independent *“A rare find: an authoritative, highly original history that is simply a delight to read. Anyone who wants to understand the turmoil and potential of modern Iraq should read this book.” -- Dr. Barbara N. Porter, Director, The Casco Bay Assyriological Institute; research associate, The Harvard Semitic Museum‘A captivating account... While both engaging and informative, it is not the content alone that is most impressive, but the author’s technique. Unlike most books on Iraq, this one takes its time recounting the region’s history, savouring the richness... Above all else, the book excels in putting events into historical perspective by seeing things not in a Manichean, “the present matters whereas the past is past” perspective.’ * Tribune *“It is rare to find a genuinely knowledgeable and expert scholar who can produce a work as accessible and balanced as this volume. Always informative and never overwhelming, this is a volume that truly must be read by anyone interested in the world we find ourselves occupying today.” -- Dr. Martha T. Roth – Dean, Humanities Division and the Chauncey S. Boucher Distinguished Service Professor of Assyriology, University of Chicago“Iraq matters. Iraq has always mattered and John Robertson’s compelling account shows exactly why. Deftly steering a path through five millennia and more, he helps us to see how and why the country’s past is always up for grabs, interpreted and reinterpreted in the light of contemporary concerns... An essential read for anyone who wants to understand why Iraq is never far from the headlines.” -- Eleanor Robson – Professor of Ancient Middle Eastern History, University College London'John Robertson has been able to walk us through so much of the history that we tend to forget'. * Camden New Journal *‘A fresh and lively discussion of Iraq’s 6,000-year history... Robertson reminds his readers of the intellectual debt the Western world owes to the peoples that populated the area of Iraq throughout history, hoping they will then see past today’s brutal headlines... His conviction is clearly expressed and poignantly supported throughout this book.’ * The Middle East Journal *“The author superbly weaves ancient and medieval historical and cultural development with Iraq's recent history and current sociopolitical turmoil. VERDICT Few books in English cover Iraq's entire history in such a holistic manner. This highly readable and informative book will be a valuable tool in teaching and research for informed general readers and Middle East specialists.” * Library Journal *“This vivid and fast-paced book is an enjoyable introduction for the general reader, from the beginnings of human civilization to the recent wholesale destruction of Iraq’s archaeological heritage.… Robertson’s focus on pre-modern Iraq effortlessly blends political and military history with the history of ideas, and flows seamlessly into the present era and the terrible predicament in which the cradle of civilization now finds itself.” * Publishers Weekly *Table of ContentsForeword Introduction: The Glory and the Curse of Iraq’s Past 1 Places, Peoples, Potentials: the Enduring Foundations of Life in Iraq The “Land Between the Rivers” Distribution of Raw Materials and Natural Resources Iraq’s Accessibility and Vulnerability to External Forces The Peoples and Social Patterns of Iraq 2 Cradle of Civilization “History Begins at Sumer” The First Cities and the Invention of Writing The Early Dynastic Period (Ca. 2900–2350 BCE) The Akkad Period (Ca. 2350–2150 BCE) The Ur III Period (Ca. 2100–2000 BCE) The Old Babylonian and Old Assyrian Periods (Ca. 2000–1595 BCE) The Kassite and Middle Assyrian Periods (1595 to Ca. 1000 BCE) Transition to Empire, Ca. 1100–900 BCE The Great “World Empires” (Ca. 900–539 BCE): The Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Periods 3 Cradle of Empires The Rediscovery of “The Might That Was Assyria” Assyria and the Bible: Creating a Bogeyman Assyrian Zenith Babylon: The Curse of an Ancient Image “The Greatness That [Really] Was Babylon” The Long Twilight of Iraq’s Ancient Imperial Era 4 Cradle of Religions, Crucible of Conflicts Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia/Iraq The Achaemenid Persians and the Religion of the Wise Lord Alexander the Great and the Coming of Hellenism Iraq under Parthian Rule: Religious Toleration and Vitality From Palestine to Mesopotamia: Iraq as a Cradle of World Religions Iraq under the Sassanids: Religious Mosaic and Holy War Jews under the Sassanids Christians under the Sassanids “Gnostics” and the Apostle of Light 5 Iraq, Islam, and the Golden Age of the Arab Empire Prelude to the Coming of Islam and the Arab Conquest of Iraq Muhammad and the Origins of the Community of Islam The Arab Muslim Conquest of Iraq: The Early Forging of Arab (Versus Persian) Identity Iraq and the Early Forging of Shi‘ite (Versus Sunni) Identity Iraq under Umayyad Rule The Abbasid Caliphate: Iraq as the Center of Islamic Civilization Abbasid Decline: Iraq Drifts Away from Center Stage 6 Interlude: From Cradle to Backwater Iraq under the Buyids, Seljuks, and Mongols The Coming of the Seljuks and Turkish Authority The Crusades and Saladin The Mongol Invasion and Its Aftermath Iraq in the Era of the “Gunpowder Empires” European Inroads The Seeds of Iraq’s Revival 7 The Creation and Zenith of Modern Iraq Setting the Stage World War I and Its Aftermath: The Hashemite Monarchy, the British, and Oil Enter Oil The Birth of Iraqi and Arab Nationalisms The Nationalist Response to British Domination Arab and Iraqi Nationalism, the Cold War, the Emergence of Israel, and the Poisoned Blessing of Oil The Republic: Competing Nationalisms, Resistance to the West, and New Wealth The Continuing Development and Impact of Iraqi and Arab Nationalism under the Republic Iraq’s Conquest of Its Oil under the Republic 8 The Long Descent Republican Iraq and the Cold War Powers until 1980 Saddam’s Qadissiya: The Iran–Iraq War, 1980–88 The Crisis with Kuwait Operation Desert Storm 1991–2003: The Scourge of Sanctions The Anglo-American Invasion of Iraq Epilogue: “Tell Me How This Ends” Afterword Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn AD 66 a local disturbance in Caesarea caused by Greeks sacrificing birds in front of a local synagogue exploded into a pan-Jewish revolt against their Roman overlords. Gaining momentum, the rebels successfully occupied Jerusalem and drove off an attack by the Roman legate of Syria, Cestus Gallius, who was defeated at the battle of Beth Horon. The emperor Nero dispatched the Roman general Vespasian along with reinforcements and, having crushed the revolt in Galilee he became embroiled in the events of the Year of the Four Emperors that would lead to his assumption of the Imperial throne. His son Titus was left to carry on the war which culminated in the dramatic siege of Jerusalem in AD 70. Remorselessly, the legions strangled the life out of the defense street by street, leaving nothing but rubble and ashes in their wake. The apotheosis of the conflict was the final stand of the last holdouts in the Temple precinct itself, and the utter annihilation of this, the physical manifestation of Judaism itself. The last remnants held out in the mountain fortress of Masada until AD 73 when with the Romans breaking down the walls the defenders committed mass suicide bringing the revolt to an end.Table of ContentsOrigins of the campaign /Chronology /Opposing commanders /Opposing fleets /Orders of battle /Opposing plans /The campaign /Aftermath /Further reading /Index

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Book SynopsisHow did Islamist terrorism arise? In this unrivalled exposé based on original sources, Craig Unger pieces together how the desperate search for oil profits by the Bush family together with their close connection to the Saudi royal family, created a toxic new by product - Islamism. Unger interviewed three former directors of the CIA, top Saudi and Israeli intelligence officials, and hundreds of other sources - including employees from the Carlyle Group, the spectral giant investment firm in which both the Saudi and Bush families have a major stake and which employed John Major and Tony Blair.Trade Review300,000 copy bestseller in the UK and US; 'Forensic.' Daily Telegraph; 'Chilling.' Independent; 'Very powerful.' Guardian; 'Excellent.' Sunday Times; A Times Bestseller

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