History : Middle East

Defying foreign government orders and interviewing terrorists face to face, a young American tours hostile lands to learn about Middle Eastern youth—and uncovers a subculture that defies every stereotype. Classrooms were never sufficient for Jared Cohen; he wanted to learn about global affairs by witnessing them firsthand. During his undergraduate years Cohen travelled extensively to Africa—often to wartorn countries, putting himself at risk to see the world firsthand. While studying on a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford, he took a crash course in Arabic, read voraciously on the history and culture of the Middle East, and in 2004 he embarked on the first of a series of incredible journeys to the Middle East. In an effort to try to understand the spread of radical Islamist violence, he focused his research on Muslim youth. The result is Children of Jihad, a portrait of paradox that probes much deeper than any journalist or pundit ever could. Written with candor and featuring dozens of eye-opening photographs, Cohen’s account begins in Lebanon, where he interviews Hezbollah members at, of all places, a McDonald’s. In Iran, he defies government threats and sneaks into underground parties, where bootleg liquor, Western music, and the Internet are all easy to access. His risky itinerary also takes him to a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, borderlands in Syria, the insurgency hotbed of Mosul, and other frontline locales. At each turn, he observes a culture at an uncanny crossroads: Bedouin shepherds with satellite dishes to provide Western TV shows, young women wearing garish makeup despite religious mandates, teenagers sending secret text messages and arranging illicit trysts. Gripping and daring, Children of Jihad shows us the future through the eyes of those who are shaping it. more...

Price: $25.00

The religious and strategic importance of Western Palestine in the Islamic period is clearly reflected in the hundreds of Arabic inscriptions found, the texts of which cover a variety of topics including construction, dedication, religious endowments, epitaphs, Qur'anic texts, prayers and invocations, all now assembled in this Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae (CIAP). The inscriptions are arranged according to site, and are studied in their respective topographical, historical and cultural contexts. In this way the Corpus offers more than a survey of inscriptions: it represents the epigraphical angle of the geographical history of the Holy Land. more...

Price: $196.00

With over 500 entries, and over 100 plans, sketch maps, photographs and illustrations, this work provides the fullest range of artistic, technical, archaeological, cultural and biographical data from the spread of Islamic culture. more...

Price: $74.95

A magnificent reckoning with the extraordinary changes engulfing the Middle East, by one of our greatest reporters on the region. Robin Wright first landed in the Middle East on October 6, 1973, the day the fourth Middle East war erupted. She has covered every country and most major crises in the region since then, through to the rise of Al-Qaeda and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. For all the drama of the past, however, the region's most decisive traumas are unfolding today as the Middle East struggles to deal with trends that have already reshaped the rest of the world. And for all the darkness, there is also hope. Some of the emerging trends give cause for greater optimism about the future of the Middle East than at any time since the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948. Dreams and Shadows is an extraordinary tour d'horizon of the new Middle East, with on-the-ground reportage of the ideas and movements driving change across the region-and the obstacles they confront. Through the powerful storytelling for which the author is famous, Dreams and Shadows ties together the players and events in Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey, the Gulf states, and the Palestinian territories into a coherent vision of what lies ahead. A marvelous field report from the center of the storm, the book is animated by the characters whose stories give the region's transformation its human immediacy and urgency. It is also rich with the history that brought us to this point. It is a masterpiece of the reporter's art and a work of profound and enduring insight. more...

Price: $26.95

An examination of the critical dilemmas of nationalist politics in the First World War. It proposes that the war catapulted nationalist movements into positions of authority well before they were ready culturally or politically. more...

Price: $140.00