Arabia
and the Gulf in Original Photographs, 1880-1950
by Andrew Wheatcroft
Hardcover from Kegan Paul
1983
Special Order
Bravo
Two Zero
by Andy McNab
(Paperback)
The
Body and the Blood: The Holy Land at the Turn of a New Millennium: A Reporter's
Journey
by Charles M. Sennott
(Hardcover)
Dream
Palace of the Arabs : A Generation's Odyssey
by Fouad Ajami
What constitutes the dream palace of the Arabs? "On their own, in the
barracks and in the academies," Fouad Ajami writes, "in the principle cities
of the Arab world--Beirut, Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo--Arabs had built an
intellectual edifice of secular nationalism and modernity." What has happened
to the dream over the past quarter century is the focus of Ajami's brilliant
and controversial inquiry. Born in Lebanon and currently a professor of
Middle Eastern studies at Johns Hopkins University (his work in Middle
Eastern politics and culture has garnered Ajami the distinguished MacArthur
Fellowship), Dream Palace presents a compressed history of the Middle East
and, equally engaging, a highly personal account of the post-World War
II Arab world which modern Arabs, like himself, have inherited. Amazon.com
(Paperback)
Empires
of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789-1923
by Efraim Karsh, Inari Karsh
Empires of the Sand presents the diplomatic and military history of
the Middle East, beginning with France's Egyptian campaigns during which
Napoleon startled Europe by claiming to have converted to Islam. The conventional
wisdom has been that during the 19th century, the Great Powers of Europe
actively sought the dismemberment of the region's preeminent power, the
Ottoman Empire, finally using its alliance with Germany during the First
World War as an excuse to carve it up into artificial entities and thus
sow the seeds for the Middle East's problems today. This is not how London-based
historians Efraim and Inari Karsh approach their subject. They see a constant
interplay of interests and intrigue, with pressures from regional forces,
such as the Hashemites, as the main impetus for the destruction of the
Ottoman Empire. When they needed support and protection, local states and
rulers didn't hesitate to call on infidels they had previously vilified.
The West played similar diplomatic games, for example, preventing Bulgaria
from taking Istanbul in 1912 for fear of upsetting the overall European
balance of power. In the Crimean War of 1854, France and Britain actually
went to war with Russia to defend Turkish interests. Though it is fashionable
for relations between the Christian West and Islamic Middle East to be
presented in terms of a "clash of civilizations," the well-researched analysis
of Empires of the Sand convincingly reinterprets the turbulent diplomacy
of this endlessly fascinating region. --John Stevenson - Amazon.com
Paperback: 448 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.15 x
9.25 x 6.12
Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr; (April )
ISBN: 0674005414
Myths
and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict
by Mitchell Geoffrey Bard
(Paperback)
The
Palestine-Israeli Conflict
by Dan Cohn-Sherbok, et al
(Paperback)
The
Reckoning : Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein
by Sandra MacKey
(Hardcover)
Six
Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
by Michael B. Oren
(Hardcover)
War
Without End : Israelis, Palestinians, and the Struggle for a Promised Land
by Anton Laguardia, Anton La Guardia
(Hardcover)
From
Beirut to Jerusalem (Updated with a New Chapter)
by Thomas L. Friedman
(Paperback)
The
Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years
by Bernard Lewis
To gain a better understanding of contemporary Middle Eastern culture
and society, which is steeped in tradition, one should look closely at
its history. Bernard Lewis, Professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton
University, considered one of the world's foremost authorities on the Middle
East, spans 2000 years of this region's history, searching in the past
for answers to questions that will inevitably arise in the future.
Drawing on material from a multitude of sources, including the work
of archaeologists and scholars, Lewis chronologically traces the political,
economical, social, and cultural development of the Middle East, from Hellenization
in antiquity to the impact of westernization on Islamic culture. Meticulously
researched, this enlightening narrative explores the patterns of history
that have repeated themselves in the Middle East.
From the ancient conflicts to the current geographical and religious
disputes between the Arabs and the Israelis, Lewis examines the ability
of this region to unite and solve its problems and asks if, in the future,
these unresolved conflicts will ultimately lead to the ethnic and cultural
factionalism that tore apart the former Yugoslavia. Amazon.com
Paperback: 448 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.08 x
9.26 x 6.16
Publisher: Touchstone Books; Reprint edition (August
)
ISBN: 0684832801
Finding
Palestine
by Liza Elliott
(Paperback)
Righteous
Victims : A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999
by Benny Morris
(Paperback)
War
and Peace in the Middle East : A Concise History
by Avi Shlaim
(Paperback)
The
Struggle for the Holy Land : Arabs, Jews, and the Emergence of Israel
by William Hare
(Hardcover)
The
Ottoman Gulf
by Frederick Fallowfield Anscombe
The history of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar between 1870-1914
Paperback: 288 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.65 x
9.04 x 6.04
Publisher: Columbia University Press; ; 0 edition (October
15, )
ISBN: 0231108397
The Persian Sphinx : Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian
Revolution
by Abbas Milani
Listed under Iranian History
What
Went Wrong? : The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East
by Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis is the West's greatest historian and interpreter of the
Near East. Books such as The Middle East and The Arabs in History are required
reading for anybody who hopes to understand the region and its people.
Now Lewis offers What Went Wrong?, a concise and timely survey of how Islamic
civilization fell from worldwide leadership in almost every frontier of
human knowledge five or six centuries ago to a "poor, weak, and ignorant"
backwater that is today dominated by "shabby tyrannies ... modern only
in their apparatus of repression and terror." He offers no easy answers,
but does provide an engaging chronicle of the Arab encounter with Europe
in all its military, economic, and cultural dimensions. The most dramatic
reversal, he says, may have occurred in the sciences: "Those who had been
disciples now became teachers; those who had been masters became pupils,
often reluctant and resentful pupils." Today's Arab governments have blamed
their plight on any number of external culprits, from Western imperialism
to the Jews. Lewis believes they must instead commit to putting their own
houses in order: "If the peoples of Middle East continue on their present
path, the suicide bomber may become a metaphor for the whole region, and
there will be no escape from a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage
and self-pity, [and] poverty and oppression." Anybody who wants to understand
the historical backdrop to September 11 would do well to look for it on
these pages. --John Miller - Amazon.com
Paperback: 208 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.55 x
8.02 x 5.30
Publisher: Harperperennial Library; (January 7, )
ISBN: 0060516054
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