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