A Second Edition of Thomas Friedman’s stunning book, the first edition of which won the American National Book Award.‘If you’re only going to read one book on the Middle East, this is it.’ Seymour HershIn this lucid, incisive and memorable book, acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic, Friedman reaches deeper into the traumatic and complex recent history of the conflicts in the Middle East than any previous writer.For this new edition, Friedman has added a further two chapters that bring the book up to 1995 and the unfolding – and stalling – of the Middle Eastern peace process.From Beirut to Jerusalem is wonderully shrewd, surprisingly funny and indispensable to anyone seeking a fuller understanding of the political causes and psychological effects of the seemingly endless strife which besets this embattled region. Read more

The first issue of Ebb Magazine, 'For Palestine', contains new writing and interviews on the historical and geopolitical context of October 7th and Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza; the history, nature and aims of the Palestinian resistance; the implications of October 7th for the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank; and the growing direct action campaign against the Israeli arms industry globally.Featuring contributions from Max Ajl, Ameed Falah, Louis Allday, Bikrum Gill and more, as well as in-depth interviews with Amal Saad and Abdaljawad Omar, it also contains archival material from Palestinian luminaries Mahmoud Darwish and George Habash. Read more

The first comprehensive and inclusive, even-handed account of the Lebanese War.Following years of growing tensions, in June 1982 Israel launched an all-out invasion of Lebanon. During the night from 5 to 6 June 1982, four armored divisions of the Israeli Defense Force moved into starting positions near the border with Lebanon, while a full paratrooper division was embarked on amphibious assault ships. Looking forward to engaging the enemy, the Israelis then crossed the border late on the morning of 6 June, and promptly became involved in the bitter battle of Tyre, landings at Awali, and the highly-symbolic assault on Beaufort Castle. The next day saw a further intensification of combat, with the Israelis securing Tyre and then attacking Sidon, and clashing with the Syrian armed forces for the first time in years. Fighting for Jezzine and Ein Zehalta quickly conflagrated into major armored engagements, while after their landing, the sea-borne Israeli forces launched their advance on Beirut through the positions of Palestinian militants and their Lebanese allies, and then onto some of the best units of the Syrian Arab Army.Based on extensive interviews with veterans from all involved parties, focusing on minute reconstructions of combat operations, and richly illustrated with exclusive photography, Lebanese Civil War, Volume 3, offers unsurpassed coverage of one of the most spectacular and most tragic conflicts of the late twentieth century. Read more

The essential guide to geopolitics in the modern Middle East   The Middle East is in crisis. The shocking events of the war in Gaza have rocked the entire region. More than a decade ago, the Arab Spring had raised hopes of a new beginning but instead ushered in a series of civil wars, coups, and even harsher autocracies. Tensions were exacerbated by the meddling of outsiders, as regional and global powers sought to further their interests. The United States, for so long the dominant actor, had stepped back, leaving a vacuum behind it to be fought over.   Christopher Phillips explores geopolitical rivalries in the region, and the major external powers vying for influence: Russia, China, the EU, and the US. Moving through ten key flashpoints, from Syria to Palestine, Phillips argues that the United States’ overextension after the Cold War, and retreat in the 2010s, has imbalanced the region. Today, the Middle East remains blighted by conflicts of unprecedented violence and a post-American scramble for power – leaving its fate in the balance. Read more

‘The very grubby coalface of foreign policy … I found the entire book most horribly addictive’ Independent ‘One of the unexpected responses to reading this masterful study is amazement at the efforts the British and French each put into undermining the other’ Spectator A fascinating insight into the untold story of how British-French rivalry drew the battle-lines of the modern Middle East. In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, two men secretly agreed to divide the Middle East between them. Sir Mark Sykes was a visionary politician; François Georges-Picot a diplomat with a grudge. They drew a line in the sand from the Mediterranean to the Persian frontier, and together remade the map of the Middle East, with Britain’s 'mandates' of Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq, and France's in Lebanon and Syria. Over the next thirty years a sordid tale of violence and clandestine political manoeuvring unfolded, told here through a stellar cast of politicians, diplomats, spies and soldiers, including T. E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. Using declassified papers from the British and French archives, James Barr vividly depicts the covert, deadly war of intrigue and espionage between Britain and France to rule the Middle East, and reveals the shocking way in which the French finally got their revenge. Read more

‘The very grubby coalface of foreign policy … I found the entire book most horribly addictive’ Independent ‘One of the unexpected responses to reading this masterful study is amazement at the efforts the British and French each put into undermining the other’ Spectator A fascinating insight into the untold story of how British-French rivalry drew the battle-lines of the modern Middle East. In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, two men secretly agreed to divide the Middle East between them. Sir Mark Sykes was a visionary politician; François Georges-Picot a diplomat with a grudge. They drew a line in the sand from the Mediterranean to the Persian frontier, and together remade the map of the Middle East, with Britain’s 'mandates' of Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq, and France's in Lebanon and Syria. Over the next thirty years a sordid tale of violence and clandestine political manoeuvring unfolded, told here through a stellar cast of politicians, diplomats, spies and soldiers, including T. E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. Using declassified papers from the British and French archives, James Barr vividly depicts the covert, deadly war of intrigue and espionage between Britain and France to rule the Middle East, and reveals the shocking way in which the French finally got their revenge. Read more

Pity the Nation ranks among the classic accounts of war in our time, both as historical document and as an eyewitness testament to human savagery. Written by one of Britain's foremost journalists, this remarkable book combines political analysis and war reporting in an unprecedented way: it is an epic account of the Lebanon conflict by an author who has personally witnessed the carnage of Beirut for over a decade. Fisk's book recounts the details of a terrible war but it also tells a story of betrayal and illusion, of Western blindness that had led inevitably to political and military catastrophe. Updated and revised, Fisk's book gives us a further insight into this troubled part of the world. 'Robert Fisk is one of the outstanding reporters of this generation. As a war correpondent he is unrivalled.' Edward Mortimer, Financial Times Read more

A detailed study of the Syrian and Lebanon campaign of World War II.In June 1941, Australian, British, Indian and Free French forces invaded the Vichy French-controlled mandate of Syria and Lebanon. They faced an enemy that had more artillery, tanks and aircraft. They fought in rocky, mountainous terrain, through barren valleys and across swollen rivers, and soon after the initial advance faced a powerful Vichy French counter-attack on key strategic positions. Despite these difficulties, the Allies prevailed, and in doing so ensured that the territory did not fall into German or pro-German hands, and thus provide a springboard from which Axis forces could attack British oil interests in Iraq, the key territory of Palestine or the Suez Canal. This book examines the high military and political strategy that lay behind the campaign, as well as the experiences and hardships as endured by the men on the ground. The battles in Syria and Lebanon were complex actions, often at the battalion level or below, and this work uses extensive war diaries and available records to make sense of the actions and examine how they affected the wider campaign. Read more

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR**Alev Scott's odyssey began when she looked beyond Turkey's borders for contemporary traces of the Ottoman Empire. Their 800-year rule ended a century ago - and yet, travelling through twelve countries from Kosovo to Greece to Palestine, she uncovers a legacy that's vital and relevant; where medieval ethnic diversity meets 21st century nationalism, and displaced people seek new identities.It's a story of surprises. An acolyte of Erdogan in Christian-majority Serbia confirms the wide-reaching appeal of his authoritarian leadership. A Druze warlord explains the secretive religious faction in the heart of the Middle East. The palimpsest-like streets of Jerusalem's Old Town hint at the Ottoman co-existence of Muslims and Jews. And in Turkish Cyprus Alev Scott rediscovers a childhood home. In every community, history is present as a dynamic force.Faced by questions of exile, diaspora and collective memory, Alev Scott searches for answers from the cafes of Beirut to the refugee camps of Lesbos. She uncovers in Erdogan's nouveau-Ottoman Turkey a version of the nostalgic utopias sold to disillusioned voters in Europe and the U.S. And yet - as she relates with compassion, insight and humour - diversity is the enduring, endangered heart of this fascinating region. Read more

In this beautifully written memoir (Publishers Weekly), Jean Said Makdisi illuminates a century of Arab life and history through the stories of her mother, Hilda Musa Said, and her Teta, Granny Munira Badr Musa. Against the backdrop of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of Arab nationalism, the founding of Israel, the Suez crisis, the Arab-Israeli wars, and civil war in Beirut, she reveals the extraordinary courage of these ordinary women, while rethinking the notions of traditional and modern, East and West. With a loving eye, acute intelligence, and elegant, impassioned prose, Makdisi has written much more than a memoir, rather an embrace of history and culture (Cleveland Plain Dealer). Read more

Dubbed 'the poster girl of Palestinian militancy', Leila Khaled's image flashed across the world after she hijacked a passenger jet in 1969. The picture of a young, determined looking woman with a checkered scarf, clutching an AK-47, was as era-defining as that of Che Guevara.In this intimate profile, based on interviews with Khaled and those who know her, Sarah Irving gives us the life-story behind the image. Key moments of Khaled's turbulent life are explored, including the dramatic events of the hijackings, her involvement in the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (a radical element within the PLO), her opposition to the Oslo peace process and her activism today.Leila Khaled's example gives unique insights into the Palestinian struggle through one remarkable life – from the tension between armed and political struggle, to the decline of the secular left and the rise of Hamas, and the role of women in a largely male movement. Read more

Lebanon's significance to the Middle East and the global arena is greater than its small size suggests - bordering Israel and Syria, it holds a geo-strategic role as the playing field for their competition as well as for their allies, America and Iran. This book examines how American diplomacy has responded to the intersection of local, regional, and international factors in Lebanon.David Hale examines several key episode in US diplomatic history with Lebanon, starting with the country's independence in 1943, up until the present moment. Crucial events such as the Lebanese Civil War, the Cedar Revolution, and more recently the spillover from the Syrian Civil War, are examined within the context of the respective US government administrations of the time and their foreign policy strategies. Hale asks whether policy-makers had realistic and compelling goals, the right strategy, sufficient means, and capable diplomats in its diplomatic approaches towards Lebanon through the years. Crucially, this study focuses on how, during these critical periods, American diplomacy toward Lebanon had consequences beyond the country itself, and on the narrative lines and lessons for the broader conduct of American foreign policy. Read more

'Poignant and compelling. will resonate with anyone who cares about justice and the abuse of power' - Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News International Editor and author of Sandstorm'Essential and urgent' - Kim Ghattas, journalist and author of Black WaveLebanon and the wider Middle East is in crisis. For this extraordinary book, journalist Dalal Mawad conducted a series of searing interviews with women in Lebanon - weaving an extraordinary story of survival, corruption and impunity.On August 4 2020, a huge explosion in the heart of Beirut killed hundreds of people - it was the apocalypse of a sequence of events that have led to Lebanon's unprecedented collapse. Award-winning journalist Dalal Mawad was in Lebanon when the blast happened, and was one of the first journalists to report on the mysterious and devastating explosion.During her reporting, she discovered something else - that it is the women who stay behind, and it is through their stories that the history of the Middle East must be re-constructed. She set out to record the stories of those she met, the women long discriminated against, and those whose stories are untold. She spoke to mothers who lost their children, spouses who lost their partners, refugee women who have fled from the war in Syria - and who now find themselves in another failing state. We hear from the Lebanese grandmother, bankrupted by the small nation's collapse, who remembers Beirut's glory days of the 1960s - when the likes of Brigitte Bardot and Miles Davis came to Beirut. And then the women like Dalal herself, who have left their home behind.The women in this book all experienced the explosion and suffered unimaginable loss and tragedy, but it is not just this one event that brings them together. Their personal stories converged to tell the story of a nation whose glory days are long gone, now riven by protracted violence, lurching from crisis to crisis, and fighting to survive. It tells not only of what these women have lost, but also what Lebanon has lost, and a part of the Middle East that is no more. Read more

Shah of Shahs depicts the final years of the Shah in Iran, and is a compelling meditation on the nature of revolution and the devastating results of fear. Here, Kapuscinski describes the tyrannical monarch, who, despite his cruel oppression of the Iranian people, sees himself as the father of a nation, who can turn a backward country into a great power - a vain hope that proves a complete failure. Yet even as Iran becomes a 'behemoth of riches' and as the Shah lives like a European billionaire, its people live in a climate of fear, terrorized by the secret police. Told with intense power and feeling, Kapuscinski portrays the inevitable build-up to revolution - a cataclysmic upheaval that delivered Iran into the rule of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Read more

This seemingly idyllic and glamourous pre-war age of air travel within the British Empire would be rudely overturned by the outbreak of the Second World War. Even before this, however, Germany's Nazi government made considerable efforts to convince the Arab peoples and their governments – where such government existed beyond direct French and British control – that Germany had no territorial ambitions in the Middle East and North Africa.After hostilities began the Nazis continued to proclaim that they and Italy would ensure Arab independence once they won the war, an unconvincing claim given Italy's recent behaviour in Libya and in the Arab world's southern neighbour Ethiopia, then known as Abyssinia. Amongst the primary targets of Nazi and to a lesser extent Fascist propaganda was King Faruq of Egypt and those members of Egypt's armed forces who still believed that their King could bring true independence and dignity to Egypt. How far such propaganda succeeded remains a matter of intense debate.From the outbreak of the Second World War until the close of 1940 the only Arab air forces which existed in anything more than name, those of Egypt and Iraq, contributed towards the Allied war effort. Once Italy entered the war in June 1940 the conflict entered Egyptian territory and, although the Egyptian government remained nominally neutral, the Royal Egyptian Air Force and Egyptian Army became directly involved, though largely "behind the lines".The Royal Iraqi Air Force was also placed on alert but, being far from the zones of active operations, was not drawn into conflict. The Fall of France resulted in the French mandated territories of Syria and Lebanon passing into the control of the Vichy French government which, though officially neutral in the wider war, became increasingly collaborationist in its international affairs. Elsewhere the once all-powerful British Empire seemed to be reeling from defeat to defeat. Thus, by the end of 1940, the majority of people in the Arab World – including in British-dominated Egypt and Iraq – believed that Germany and Italy would win the war. This growing opinion was also present in the Arab militaries, including the REAF and RIrqAF. It would result in tensions, disaffection and even defections in Egypt during 1941. In Iraq it resulted in the First Anglo-Iraq War of May 1941, also known to the British as the Rashid Ali Rebellion. These events will form the core of Volume Six of Air Power and the Arab World. Read more

This text shows how Beirut is now beginning to recover after the desolation and destruction of the early 1990s. This process is attributed to SOLIDERE, the Lebanese Company for the Development and Reconstruction of the Beirut Central District, which has undertaken the revitalization of the city. Read more

Please Note That The Following Individual Books As Per Original ISBN and Cover Image In this Listing shall be Dispatched Collectively: James Barr Collection 2 Books Set (A Line in the Sand, Lords of the Desert): A Line in the Sand: In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, two men secretly agreed to divide the Middle East between them. Sir Mark Sykes was a visionary politician; Francois Georges-Picot a diplomat with a grudge. The deal they struck, which was designed to relieve tensions that threatened to engulf the Entente Cordiale, drew a line in the sand from the Mediterranean to the Persian frontier. Territory north of that stark line would go to France; land south of it, to Britain. Against the odds their pact survived the war to form the basis for the post-war division of the region into five new countries Britain and France would rule. Lords of the Desert: Upon victory in 1945, Britain still dominated the Middle East. But her motives for wanting to dominate this crossroads between Europe, Asia and Africa were changing. Where ‘imperial security’ – control of the route to India – had once been paramount, now oil was an increasingly important factor. So, too, was prestige. Ironically, the very end of empire made control of the Middle East precious in itself: on it hung Britain’s claim to be a great power. Unable to withstand Arab and Jewish nationalism, within a generation the British were gone. But that is not the full story. What ultimately sped Britain on her way was the uncompromising attitude of the United States, which was determined to displace the British in the Middle East. Read more

In this groundbreaking work that sets apart fact and legend, authors Finkelstein and Silberman use significant archeological discoveries to provide historical information about biblical Israel and its neighbors.In this iconoclastic and provocative work, leading scholars Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman draw on recent archaeological research to present a dramatically revised portrait of ancient Israel and its neighbors. They argue that crucial evidence (or a telling lack of evidence) at digs in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon suggests that many of the most famous stories in the Bible—the wanderings of the patriarchs, the Exodus from Egypt, Joshua’s conquest of Canaan, and David and Solomon’s vast empire—reflect the world of the later authors rather than actual historical facts. Challenging the fundamentalist readings of the scriptures and marshaling the latest archaeological evidence to support its new vision of ancient Israel, The Bible Unearthed offers a fascinating and controversial perspective on when and why the Bible was written and why it possesses such great spiritual and emotional power today. Read more

'Brings home the full enormity of the Iraq war' - Simon Jenkins, The GuardianWhen troops invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein's regime, most people expected an easy victory. Instead, the gamble we took was a grave mistake, and its ramifications continue to reverberate through the lives of millions, in Iraq and the West. As we gain more distance from those events, it can be argued that many of the issues facing us today - the rise of the Islamic State, increased Islamic terrorism, intensified violence in the Middle East, mass migration, and more - can be traced back to the decision to invade Iraq.In The Iraq War, award-winning documentary maker James Bluemel collects first-hand testimony from those who lived through the horrors of the invasion and whose actions were dictated by such extreme circumstances. It takes in all sides of the conflict - working class Iraqi families watching their country erupt into civil war; soldiers and journalists on the ground; American families dealing with the grief of losing their son or daughter; parents of a suicide bomber coming to terms with unfathomable events - to create the most in-depth and multi-faceted portrait of the Iraq War to date. Accompanying a major BBC series, James Bluemel's book is an essential account of a conflict that continues to shape our world, and a startling reminder of the consequences of our past decisions. Read more