Middle East Politics

Growing up in Tehran in the 1960s, Terence Ward and his brothers were watched over by Hassan, the family’s cook, housekeeper, and cultural guide. After an absence of 30 years and much turmoil in Iran, Ward embarks on a quixotic pilgrimage with his family in search of their lost friend. However, as they set out on this improbable quest with no address or phone number, their only hope lies in their mother’s small black and white photograph taken decades before.

Blending science and technology studies, sociology, and geography with a host of archival material, in-depth interviews, and ethnographies, The Politics of Maps explores how the geographical sciences came to be entangled with the politics, territorial claim-making, and nation-state building of Israel/Palestine.

When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, in December 2010, sparking a wave of popular uprisings that would topple dictatorial regimes across North Africa and the Middle East, observers hailed the onset of a great “Arab Awakening.” But this wasn’t the first time people in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere across the region had taken to the streets demanding fundamental change.

For nearly 20 years, Aaron David Miller has played a central role in U.S. efforts to broker Arab-Israeli peace. His position as an advisor to presidents, secretaries of state, and national security advisors has given him a unique perspective on a problem that American leaders have wrestled with for more than half a century: Why has the world's greatest superpower failed to find a solution for peace in the Middle East?

Many important figures in Israeli history played a part in the establishment of the new state, and among the most iconic is the nation’s first female premier, Golda Meir. Known as the “uncrowned queen of Israel” and “Mother Courage”, Meir was an activist for many years, lobbying for a Jewish state in the Mandate of Palestine. She served in numerous capacities before her appointment as prime minister and remains one of the most revered Israeli leaders from the pre-state years through the long-sought dream of a Jewish nation.

The Olive Branch from Palestine provides a new narrative of the Palestinian effort to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and offers a bold plan for ending this conflict today, a proposal that focuses on Palestinian agency and the power of the Palestinians to bring about the two-state solution, even in the absence of a fully committed Israeli partner.

For more than a decade, French journalist Nicolas Hénin has reported from the front lines of conflict in the Middle East, much of his time spent in Iraq and Syria. He witnessed the events leading to the rise of Islamic State, and, in June 2013, he was captured by IS and spent 10 months in captivity with James Foley and others who were beheaded soon after Hénin was released.

The "Lackawanna Six" were young men, born of Yemeni families long settled in upstate New York, who took a trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan and spent time in an al-Qaeda training camp long before the specter of 9/11, before most people had even heard of Osama Bin Laden, and before the existence of the Homeland Security Act.

Venice, 1522. Intelligence arrives from the east confirming Europe's greatest fear: the vastly rich Ottoman Sultan has all he needs to wage total war - and his sights are set on Rome. With Christendom divided, Suleyman the Magnificent has his hand on its entrails. From the palaces of Istanbul to the blood-soaked fields of Central Europe and the scorched coasts of North Africa, The Lion House pioneers a bold new style of eye-witness history to tell a true story of power at its most glittering, personal and perilous.

Using the writings of Cosmas and a wealth of other historical and archaeological evidence from the period, eminent historian G. W. Bowersock carefully reconstructs this fascinating but overlooked chapter in pre-Islamic Arabian history. The flashpoint of the war, Bowersock tells us, occurred when Yusuf, the Jewish king of Himyar, massacred hundreds of Christians living in Najran. The Christian ruler of Ethiopia, Kaleb, urged on by the Byzantine emperor Justin, led a force of 120,000 men across the Red Sea to defeat Yusuf.

Una reflexión imprescindible que permita sentar las bases para pensar Medio Oriente con claridad: un escenario donde se entrecruzan nervios tan sensibles como la religión, la identidad nacional, el petróleo, el terrorismo y el fundamentalismo.

Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world---a new business-minded middle class---that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.

Fleeing East from Nazi terror, over a million Polish Jews traversed the Soviet Union, many finding refuge in Muslim lands. Their story - the extraordinary saga of two thirds of Polish Jewish survivors - has never been fully told. Author Mikhal Dekel's father, Hannan Teitel, and her aunt Regina were two of these refugees. After they fled the town in eastern Poland where their family had been successful brewers for centuries, they endured extreme suffering in the Soviet forced labor camps known as "special settlements".

The Muslim Brotherhood, or Ikhwan, has engaged in terrorism, assassinations, and anti-Western, anti-Semitic rhetoric and violence for almost a century - yet few Americans realize how powerful they really are. While we focus on al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah, it's actually the Muslim Brotherhood, the world's oldest, most influential, and most anti-American Islamist group, that has become the preeminent voice and power in the Muslim world.

The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is over 70 years old and counting but has its roots in over 2,000 years of history. With so much time and history, the Middle East peace process has become laden with unique, politically sensitive. Menachem Begin: The Life and Legacy of the Irgun Leader Who Became Israel’s Prime Minister looks at how Begin rose the ranks through militias and governments to become one of the Jewish State’s most consequential leaders.

It was an annus horribilis for Iran's Supreme Leader. The Green Movement had been crushed, but the regime was on edge, anxious lest democratic protests resurge. International sanctions were dragging down the economy while talk of war with the West grew. Hooman Majd was there for all of it. A new father at age fifty, he decided to take his blonde, blue-eyed Midwestern yoga instructor wife Karri and his adorable, only-eats-organic infant son Khash from their hip Brooklyn neighborhood to spend a year in the land of his birth.

Across the Western alliance, liberal politicians and pundits are calling for renewed diplomatic engagement with Iran, convinced that Tehran will respond to reason and halt its nuclear weapons program. Yet, according to best-selling author and former U.N. ambassador Dore Gold, countries have repeatedly tried diplomatic talks and utterly failed.

Medea Benjamin researches the sinister nature of the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia. In seven succinct chapters followed by a meditation on prospects for change, Benjamin shines a light on one of the most perplexing elements of American foreign policy. Why, over a period of decades and across various presidential administrations, has the US consistently supported a regime shown time and again to be one of the most powerful forces working against American interests?

The symbol of the Jewish State was the noble pioneer draining the swamps and making the deserts bloom: the legendary kibbutznik. So what ever happened to the pioneers’ dream of founding a socialist utopia in the land called Palestine? Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel draws listeners into the quest for answers to the defining political conflict of our era. Acclaimed author David Leach revisits his raucous memories of life as a kibbutz volunteer and returns to meet a new generation of Jewish and Arab citizens struggling to forge a better future together.

Political provocateur Bill Maher tells it like it is in a useful and hilarious guide for the many Americans who want to do more here at home to help in the war effort, but are at a loss as to how. Says Maher, "Traveling the country, I find that people want to do more here at home, but are at a loss as to what. Even when the government issues a Terrorism Advisory, it's maddeningly vague - 'Terrorist alert today! Code Burnt Orange!' 'And what?' I always want to ask, "Bring a sweater?'"