Middle East Books - Page 4

The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (Kodansha Globe)

Peter Hopkirk

Amazon Price: $12.24 List Price: $18.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Kodansha International Amazon Marketplace: 85 new & used starting at $5.96

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> General
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Europe -> England -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 88 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In a phrase coined by Captain Arthur Connolly of the East India Company before he was beheaded in Bokhara for spying in 1842, a "Great Game" was played between Tsarist Russia and Victorian England for supremacy in Central Asia. At stake was the security of India, key to the wealth of the British Empire. When play began early in the 19th century, the frontiers of the two imperial powers lay two thousand miles apart, across vast deserts and almost impassable mountain ranges; by the end, only 20 miles separated the two rivals.

Peter Hopkirk, a former reporter for The Times of London with wide experience of the region, tells an extraordinary story of ambition, intrigue, and military adventure. His sensational narrative moves at breakneck pace, yet even as he paints his colorful characters--tribal chieftains, generals, spies, Queen Victoria herself--he skillfully provides a clear overview of the geographical and diplomatic framework. The Great Game was Russia's version of America's "Manifest Destiny" to dominate a continent, and Hopkirk is careful to explain Russian viewpoints as fully as those of the British. The story ends with the fall of Tsarist Russia in 1917, but the demise of the Soviet Empire (hastened by a decade of bloody fighting in Afghanistan) gives it new relevance, as world peace and stability are again threatened by tensions in this volatile region of great mineral wealth and strategic significance. --John Stevenson

The Case Against Israel's Enemies: Exposing Jimmy Carter and Others Who Stand in the Way of Peace

Alan Dershowitz

Amazon Price: $17.13 List Price: $25.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Wiley Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $12.97

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> General
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> Israel

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"As always when Israel needs to be defended...  Alan Dershowitz speaks with great passion and personal courage."
--Elie Wiesel

"This is a compelling book that unmasks the dangerous revisionism that distorts the real Israel. Dershowitz debunks former President Jimmy Carter's apartheid analogy, Walt and Mearsheimer's canard of dual loyalty, the immorality of the British boycott of Israeli academics, and the bigotry of the anti-Israel hard left and right. He also assesses the existential threats against Israel and the options available to the Jewish state. A must-read for all who care about international justice and Israel's survival in a world of biased enemies."
--The Honorable Irwin CotlerMember of Parliament and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada; Professor of Law (on leave from McGill University)

Praise for Alan Dershowitz

"Dershowitz . . . knows how to construct an argument. . . . Especially effective at pointing to the hypocrisy of many of Israel's critics."
--New York Times Book Review

The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Linda J. Bilmes

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: W. W. Norton Amazon Marketplace: 51 new & used starting at $9.17

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> Iran
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Iraq War
Subjects -> History -> Military -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"This is a catalog [of costs] the Bush team never looked at. It's a catalog that they still don't want you to see."—James Galbraith

America has already spent close to a trillion dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there are hundreds of billions of bills still due—including staggering costs to take care of the thousands of injured veterans, providing them with disability benefits and health care. In this sobering study, Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard University's Linda J. Bilmes reveal a wide range of costs that have been hidden from U.S. taxpayers and left out of the debate about our involvement in Iraq. That involvement, the authors conservatively estimate, will cost us more than $3 trillion.

"Stiglitz and Bilmes have clearly demonstrated the need for Congress and the administration to ensure that those making sacrifices today will see those sacrifices honored in the future."—Dave W. Gorman, executive director, Disabled American Veterans

The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood

Rashid Khalidi

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Beacon Press Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $3.42

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> Israel
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> Palestine
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A timely and compelling examination of the Palestinian dilemma, named one of the 100 best books of the year by Publishers Weekly

In Resurrecting Empire, Rashid Khalidi dissected the failures of colonial policy over the entire span of the modern history of the Middle East, predicted the meltdown in Iraq that we are now witnessing with increasing horror, and offered viable alternatives for achieving peace in the region. His newest book, The Iron Cage, hones in on Palestinian politics and history. Once again Khalidi draws on a wealth of experience and scholarship to elucidate the current conflict, using history to provide a clear-eyed view of the situation today.

The story of the Palestinian search to establish a state begins in the era of British control over Palestine and stretches between the two world wars, when colonial control of the region became increasingly unpopular and power began to shift toward the United States. In this crucial period, and in the years immediately following World War II, Palestinian leaders were unable to achieve the long-cherished goal of establishing an independent state—a critical failure that throws a bright light on the efforts of the Palestinians to create a state in the many decades since 1948. By frankly discussing the reasons behind this failure, Khalidi offers a much-needed perspective for anyone concerned about peace in the Middle East.

"Rashid Khalidi is a historian's historian. The Iron Cage is his most accomplished effort to date . . . Magisterial in scope, meticulous in its attention to detail, and decidedly dispassionate in its analysis, The Iron Cage is destined to be a benchmark of its genre."
—Joel Schalit, Tikkun

"At heart a historical essay, an effort to decide why the Palestinians . . . have failed to achieve an independent state." —Steven Erlanger, New York Times

"Khalidi, tackling 'historical amnesia,' brilliantly analyses the structural handicap which hobbled the Palestinians throughout 30 years of British rule . . . Khalidi restores the Palestinians to something more than victims, acknowledging that for all their disadvantages, they have played their role and can (and must) still do so to determine their own fate." —Ian Black, Guardian

"Khalidi uses history to provide a clear-eyed view of the region and assess the prospects for peace. He strives successfully for even-handedness."
—Anthony Lewis, author of Gideon's Trumpet and Make No Law

". . . we have to open a dialogue with Hamas—not to embrace it, but to lay out a gradual pathway that will bring it into relations with Israel. As Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University's Palestinian expert and author of The Iron Cage points out: 'If we let the Palestinian Authority be destroyed, and then we keep Hamas isolated'—even though it won a democratic election that we sponsored—'we will end up with the hard boys, the gangs you see today on the streets of Gaza, who respond to no authority at all.'"
—New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman

In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale

Amitav Ghosh

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Vintage Amazon Marketplace: 61 new & used starting at $6.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Ethnic & National -> Jewish
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Enjoyed immensely-have lived in the area 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I enjoyed this book immensely as I have lived and researched in the Kanara Coast of India where a main character in the book spends a great deal of his life and where there have been from early times trade relations with the Middle East. Although I have not researched in the Egypt I can relate to many research experiences of the author. It was a real treat for me. Martha B. Ashton-Sikora

Man in the Middle-East 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

If National Geographic stories reconstructing a stone-age human from its fossilized remains dug out of the ashes of a volcano (such as in physical anthropology) fail to engage your fascination, chances are that this story will seem more academic to you than the home work assignment to watch History Channel. I am one such history-averse person and the book was too slow to start. However, I finished it with a renewed respect for social anthropology and its relevance to the world we live in. The way a story of a 12th century Egyptian trader can be relevant to the social, cultural, political and business of our times is hard to ignore and not take heed of. Besides, it is fascinating to learn how a small set of information sources with varying degrees of reliability can be connected like dots that reveal the story of a 800 year old human life in all its aspects.

Some of the revelations in the book that left me agape were: the rich history of trade between Indian and Egypt that made a lasting impact on the evolution of both countries and her peoples; the complex way in which the social temper and cultural identity of a country are entrenched in religion, thus making religion the primary tool for governing powers to achieve political and business goals in ways that are irreversibly divisive; the power of a united few with a disruptive agenda over the divided many with a peaceful one.

Apparently, this book is part of the course reading for anthropology students at UC, Santa Cruz (and possibly many other universities worldwide), as I found out from a student sitting next to me in the plane. However, Amitav Ghosh's extensive research goes beyond anthropology and throws light on relevant topics of today such as Iraq & the Middle East, the cultural divide between Jewish, Muslims, Christians and Hindus, the Indian identity, and the massive social changes that conservative rural Muslims are grappling with.

Editorial Review:

As he searches for information about the life of an Indian slave in twelfth-century Egypt, the author, a Hindu, comes face to face with the Muslim world and culture of modern Egypt, in a narrative that juxtaposes ancient history and modern travelogue.

Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror

Robert Young Pelton

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Three Rivers Press Amazon Marketplace: 54 new & used starting at $7.14

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> Iraq
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Iraq War
Subjects -> History -> Military -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 43 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Robert Young Pelton first became aware of the phenomenon of hired guns in the War on Terror when he met a covert team of contractors on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border in the fall of 2003. Pelton soon embarked on a globe-spanning odyssey to penetrate and understand this shadowy world, ultimately delivering stunning insights into the way private soldiers are used.

Enter a blood-soaked world of South African mercenaries and tribal fighters backed by ruthless financiers. Drop into Baghdad’s Green Zone, strap on body armor, and take a daily high-speed ride with a doomed crew of security contractors who dodge car bombs and snipers just to get their charges to the airport. Share a drink in a chic hotel bar with wealthy owners of private armies who debate the best way to stay alive in war zones.

Licensed to Kill spans four continents and three years, taking us inside the CIA’s dirty wars; the brutal contractor murders in Fallujah and the Alamo-like sieges in Najaf and Al Kut; the Deep South contractor training camps where ex–Special Operations soldiers and even small town cops learn the ropes; the contractor conventions where macho attendees swap bullet-punctuated tales and discuss upcoming gigs; and the grim Central African prison where contractors turned failed mercenaries pay a steep price.

The United States has encouraged the use of the private sector in all facets of the War on Terror, placing contractors outside the bounds of functional legal constraints. With the shocking clarity that can come only from firsthand observation, Licensed to Kill painstakingly deconstructs the most controversial events and introduces the pivotal players. Most disturbingly, it shows that there are indeed thousands of contractors—with hundreds more being produced every month—who’ve been given a license to kill, their services available to the highest bidder.


From the Hardcover edition.

Saddam's Secrets

Georges Hormuz Sada

Amazon Price: $16.49 List Price: $24.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Thomas Nelson Amazon Marketplace: 85 new & used starting at $3.32

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Military -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Military -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Political

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 94 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

eye opening 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Finally, the inside scoop! Questions of WMD answered! Why isn't this information made more readily available to the American People? This is a story of one man's faith and honesty in the worst of situations! You want to know the truth? Read this book!!

sudam's secrets 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I enjoyed the information in the book. Poorly written but never the less informative

Here's the other side of the story 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is an important book that every American should read. Gen Sada is an amazing man, an eye-witness in Saddam's regime who lived to tell about it and claims to have actually seen WMD with his own eyes. Fascinating!

Excellent Read 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

It's a shame that the public has to dig for the truth rather than rely on the press to be honest, but that's the situation. If you really want to know what was going on rather than buy into the juvenile theory that this was somehow all about W's oil buddies, this is a great start.

saddam's secrets 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Have only read a small amount so far, but already would rate it very good and something all americans should read.

Editorial Review:

General Sada paints a picture of Hussein, his regime-and his country-that is at once personal and truthful, compelling and sobering.

Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (Vintage)

Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Vintage Amazon Marketplace: 84 new & used starting at $3.92

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> Iraq
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> General
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 152 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A damning indictment 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Since I lived for a year in Baghdad's Green Zone, I felt it was necessary for me to read what happened before I got there, under L. Paul Bremer, bureaucrat extraordinaire. That is why I recently found myself reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran.

To say that the Bush Administration and its chosen Iraq occupation overlords made poor choices during and immediately after the invasion of that country would be an understatement so vast that I have no words to describe how big an understatement I would be making. Reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City reinforced for me many of the reasons why I heard the impact of so many mortars during my 2005-2006 sojourn to Iraq's largest city and at the time one of the most violent if not the most violent city in the world.

I met Rajiv Chandrasekaran in Baghdad in 2006, when I credentialed him for access to military bases. The man was humble, unassuming and patient with the bureaucratic process he endured, which is much more than I can say for Geraldo Rivera, who had sycophants hanging all over him and required that we open for a special session to credential him. In any case, the book itself is superly written in a professional tone.

The damning indictments of cronyism and poor decision making due to a complete lack of understanding of the culture and history of Iraq are presented artfully, without the forced overtones of sarcasm that would have appeared had I written Imperial Life in the Emerald City.

From the story of the Iraqi expatriatate who returns post invasion to open a five-star pizza shop only to find his American customers cannot leave their fortified enclave to the tale of the minor minister who is assasinated for trying to help his country without being politically involved, to the detailed descriptions of the "little America" inside a several square mile compound in downtown Baghdad, this book is well worth reading.

I do not know if L. Paul Bremer has yet publicly admitted how arrogant and stupid many of the decisions made in that first year of occupation were, but he knows it in his heart. If he doesn't that would mean the man has no heart.

Having served in Iraq, and having been to a few locales outside the "Emerald Palace" I called the Green Zone, I still hold pain in my heart for the people I met and for their suffering. Things may be turning around now in that country. But in reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City, it becomes clear that much of the violence that wracked the country and the city of Baghdad could have been avoided if things had been done differently in the beginning. We'll never know how many died because of bad decision making, but it is clear that the numbers are in the tens of thousands and possibly much higher.

If you've ever wondered what was really going on in those first days of the occupation, you owe it to yourself to read this book. Highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

The Green Zone, Baghdad, 2003: in this walled-off compound of swimming pools and luxurious amenities, Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority set out to fashion a new, democratic Iraq. Staffed by idealistic aides chosen primarily for their views on issues such as abortion and capital punishment, the CPA spent the crucial first year of occupation pursuing goals that had little to do with the immediate needs of a postwar nation: flat taxes instead of electricity and deregulated health care instead of emergency medical supplies.

In this acclaimed firsthand account, the former Baghdad bureau chief of The Washington Post gives us an intimate portrait of life inside this Oz-like bubble, which continued unaffected by the growing mayhem outside. This is a quietly devastating tale of imperial folly, and the definitive history of those early days when things went irrevocably wrong in Iraq.

Afghanistan: A Military History From Alexander The Great To The Fall Of The Taliban

Stephen Tanner

Amazon Price: $12.21 List Price: $17.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Da Capo Press Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $10.71

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> Afghanistan

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The only complete single-volume military history of Afghanistan, from ancient times to the war waged by the United States after September 11.

Following the events of September 11, 2001, the world was riveted as American military power contested the legendary warrior culture of Afghanistan. By spring 2002, America began to draw down its forces, its mission accomplished: The Afghan Taliban regime has been overthrown and the terrorists it harbored were on the run. Was America's easy victory proof of its military superiority, or were the Afghans merely eyeing the newcomers as they have watched foreign armies in centuries past, knowing time is on their side?

For over 2,500 years, the forbidding territory of Afghanistan has served as a vital crossroads--not just for armies but for clashes between civilizations--the Greeks, Arabs, Mongols, and Tartars, and in more recent times, Britain and Russia. Now America must face a new enemy on this land--a land that for centuries has become a graveyard of empires past.

This first-ever complete military history of Afghanistan illuminates the broad historical context into which American forces have been drawn--a cautionary tale, perhaps, about the dangers that may lie ahead.

A History of the Jews

Paul Johnson

Amazon Price: $13.11 List Price: $17.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Perennial Amazon Marketplace: 100 new & used starting at $2.35

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> Israel
Subjects -> History -> World -> Jewish -> General
Subjects -> History -> World -> Jewish -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 72 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Paul Johnson says that writing A History of the Jews was like writing a history of the world "seen from the viewpoint of a learned and intelligent victim." Johnson's history begins with the Bible and ends with the establishment of the State of Israel. Throughout, Johnson's history is driven by a philosophical interest: "The Jews," he writes, "stand right at the centre of the perennial attempt to give human life the dignity of a purpose. Does their own history suggest that such attempts are worth making? Or does it reveal their essential futility?" Johnson's history is lucid, thorough, and--as one would expect of almost any project with such a broad scope--a little wrong-headed. By the end of the book, readers will be grateful for Johnson's questioning of the Jews' confidence in their cosmic significance. However, readers may also be a little annoyed by his energetic inquiries as to whether this significance was man-made or providentially provided. Either way, it's a given: for a historian of Israel, this should adequately settle the question. Johnson's 600-page history is probably the best we've got by a living gentile--which is no small accomplishment at all. --Michael Joseph Gross