This revised edition of the number-one bestseller and winner of the 1989 National Book Award includes the Pulitzer Prize-winning author's new, updated epilogue.One of the most thought-provoking books ever written about the Middle East, From Beirut to Jerusalem remains vital to our understanding of this complex and volatile region of the world. Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L. Friedman drew upon his ten years of experience reporting from Lebanon and Israel to write this now-classic work of journalism. In a new afterword, he updates his journey with a fresh discussion of the Arab Awakenings and how they are transforming the area, and a new look at relations between Israelis and Palestinians, and Israelis and Israelis. Rich with anecdote, history, analysis, and autobiography, From Beirut to Jerusalem will continue to shape how we see the Middle East for many years to come. "If you're only going to read one book on the Middle East, this is it."--Seymour M. Hersh Read more

The largest cut and moved stones on the planet are believed to be at Baalbek in Lebanon, weighing in at 800, 1000, 1200 and more recently 1600 tons. Most academics believe that they, and the Baalbek complex were created by the Romans about 2000 years ago, but in this book you will see that the story is far more complex, and that Baalbek is far older. Stones of this size can not be moved with today's 21st century equipment, and thus a civilization more advanced than us existed thousands of years ago that had Lost Ancient high Technology. Read more

The mysterious Phoenicians and the ancient Mediterranean are experienced in richer detail than ever before in this well researched and intriguing narrative. Instead of seeing darkness in the years before classical Greece, we now see glimmers of light revealing a continuous parade of remarkable societies, great leaders and epic events. Drawing back the veil of secrecy surrounding the Phoenicians uncovers new glimpses of Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and people of other societies. Sanford Holst is one of the world's leading authorities on the Phoenicians, and appears in the BBC series Ancient Worlds. A member of the well-respected Royal Historical Society, Holst has presented academic papers on the Phoenicians at universities around the world. Working with respected experts, often on-site, he has added photos, sources, and ten years of additional research to his previous work. This is a walk through the idyllic ancient Mediterranean you will long remember. Read more

Discover the remarkable history of the 1982 Lebanon War...Free BONUS Inside!The politics and recent history of the Middle East can seem baffling to outsiders. Nowhere was that more evident than during the Lebanon War that raged in 1982. Even contemporary reporting often made fundamental mistakes, and there was little general understanding of what was happening and why. This conflict involved a bewildering number of groups and influences from different parts of the world. The precipitating event was the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London, carried out by members of a Palestinian terrorist group. In response, Israel’s armed forces, the IDF, launched an invasion of Lebanon in which the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) had established its own army. The IDF also found themselves fighting against the armed forces of Syria. Some Lebanese served in the forces directed by Syria, some fought with Palestinian groups, while others aligned themselves with Israel.The outcome was a savage and confusing war that brought misery and suffering to the majority of ordinary people of Lebanon and turned parts of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, into a war-torn wasteland. While the invasion of Lebanon was a military victory for Israel, it notably failed to bring peace or stability to this region. This is the complex and tragic story of the 1982 Lebanon War.Discover a plethora of topics such asThe Palestinian Liberation OrganizationThe Lebanese Civil WarOperation Peace for GalileeOperation Mole Cricket 19The Siege of BeirutAftermathAnd much more!So if you want a concise and informative book on the 1982 Lebanon War, simply scroll up and click the "Buy now" button for instant access! Read more

One of the Arab world's greatest poets uses the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the shelling of Beirut as the setting for this sequence of prose poems. Mahmoud Darwish vividly recreates the sights and sounds of a city under terrible siege. As fighter jets scream overhead, he explores the war-ravaged streets of Beirut on August 6th (Hiroshima Day).Memory for Forgetfulness is an extended reflection on the invasion and its political and historical dimensions. It is also a journey into personal and collective memory. What is the meaning of exile? What is the role of the writer in time of war? What is the relationship of writing (memory) to history (forgetfulness)? In raising these questions, Darwish implicitly connects writing, homeland, meaning, and resistance in an ironic, condensed work that combines wit with rage.Ibrahim Muhawi's translation beautifully renders Darwish's testament to the heroism of a people under siege, and to Palestinian creativity and continuity. Sinan Antoon’s foreword, written expressly for this edition, sets Darwish’s work in the context of changes in the Middle East in the past thirty years. 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

In this magisterial history of Lebanon, from the end of Ottoman rule to the Hezbollah and Hamas wars of today, acclaimed and fiercely independent Middle East journalist and historian David Hirst charts the interplay between a uniquely complex country and the broader struggles of the modern Middle East. Lebanon is the battleground on which the region's greater states pursue their strategic, political, and ideological conflicts--conflicts that sometimes escalate into full-scale proxy wars. Hirst warns that only serious diplomatic action from the Obama administration can prevent the next such action from engulfing the entire region. Read more

In a detailed sequel to Marius Deeb’s authoritative Syria’s Terrorist War on Lebanon and the Peace Process, he demonstrates how the coalition of Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah has used assassination, terrorism, and force against the peaceful and liberal democratic Cedar Revolution, trying to undermine its success in pushing the Syrian Army out of Lebanon and in winning the parliamentary elections of 2005 and 2009. Read more

Lebanon seems a country in the grip of permanent crisis. In recent years it has suffered blow after blow, from Rafiq Hariri's assassination in 2005, to the 2006 July War, to the current Syrian conflict, which has brought a million refugees streaming into the country.This is an account not just of Lebanon's high politics, with its endless rows, walk-outs, machinations and foreign alliances, but also of the politics of everyday life: all the stresses and strains the country's inhabitants face, from electricity black-outs and uncollected rubbish to stagnating wages and property bubbles. Andrew Arsan moves between parliament and the public squares where protesters gather, between luxury high-rises and refugee camps, and between expensive nightclubs and seafront promenades, providing a comprehensive view of Lebanon in the twenty-first century.Where others have treated Lebanon's woes as exceptional, a by-product of its sectarianism and particular vulnerability to regional crises, Arsan argues that there is nothing particular about Lebanon's predicament. Rather, it is a country of the age--one of neoliberal economics, populist fervor, forced displacement, rising xenophobia, and public disillusion. Lebanon, in short, offers us a lens through which to look on our times. Read more

Seul pays au Moyen-Orient à montrer un gout marqué pour la culture, à rejeter le radicalisme religieux, à n’avoir jamais connu de régime autoritaire, le Liban fait fi gure d’exception. Toutefois, cet équilibre fragile a été mis en péril par plusieurs guerres civiles, les occupations israéliennes et syriennes, la présence de réfugiés palestiniens, le fondamentalisme exacerbé de certains de ses voisins et les inégalités socio-économiques.Depuis trente siècles, le Liban a été traversé par de nombreuses civilisations – Phéniciens, Mésopotamiens, Romains. À partir du VIIe siècle, des populations chrétiennes et musulmanes trouvent refuge au Mont-Liban, coeur historique, où elles coexistent et s’affrontent épisodiquement. En 1920, après l’effondrement de l’Empire ottoman, la France crée un État-nation réunissant la Montagne, le littoral et la vallée orientale de la Békaa dans un seul nouveau territoire, le Grand-Liban. Dix-huit communautés cohabitent ainsi dans le seul pays arabe où l’exercice du pouvoir est réellement multiconfessionnel. Depuis les années 1970, le Liban est secoué par une guerre civile qui a été exacerbée par plusieurs interventions militaires de nations voisines – notamment la Syrie et Israël – et les ingérences de grandes puissances régionales comme l’Iran.De l’Antiquité à nos jours, Xavier Baron retrace la riche histoire du pays des cèdres. Petite nation au rayonnement indéniable, sans cesse menacée de l’intérieur ou de l’extérieur, le Liban reste un exemple de stabilité dans une région en plein chaos. Read more

In this gripping blend of reportage, memoir, and analysis, a journalist and daughter of one of the world’s most famous hostages, Terry Anderson, takes an intimate look at her father’s captivity during the Lebanese Hostage Crisis and the ensuing political firestorm on both her family and the United States—as well as the far-reaching implications of those events on Middle Eastern politics today.In 1991, seven-year-old Sulome Anderson met her father, Terry, for the first time. While working as the Middle East bureau chief for the Associated Press covering the long and bloody civil war in Lebanon, Terry had been kidnapped in Beirut and held for more than six years by a Shiite Muslim militia associated by most with the Hezbollah movement.As the nation celebrated, the media captured a smiling Anderson family joyously reunited. But the truth was far darker. Plagued by PTSD, Terry was a moody, aloof, and distant figure to the young daughter who had long dreamed of his return—and while she smiled for the cameras all the same, she absorbed his trauma as her own. Years later, after long battles with drug abuse and mental illness, Sulome would travel to the Middle East as a reporter, seeking to understand her father, the men who had kidnapped him, and ultimately, herself. What she discovered was shocking—not just about Terry, but about the international political machinations that occurred during the years of his captivity.The Hostage’s Daughter is an intimate look at the effect of the Lebanese Hostage Crisis on Anderson’s family, the United States, and the Middle East today. Sulome tells moving stories from her experiences as a reporter in the region and challenges our understanding of global politics, the forces that spawn terrorism and especially Lebanon, the beautiful, devastated, and vitally important country she came to love. Powerful and eye-opening The Hostage’s Daughter is essential reading for anyone interested in international relations, this violent, haunted region, and America's role in its fate. Read more

AWARDS: - 2024 Readers' favorite Bronze Medal Winner, Non Fiction- Memoir In "Just Fireworks," experience Lebanon's civil war during the 1980s through the eyes of a child. Born into a world of relentless conflict, he recounts his harrowing experiences growing up amidst bullets, rockets, and the ever-present threat of destruction.Today, as a husband to a prominent Ugandan public figure and a father of six, the author reflects on how these memories shaped him, from surviving his father's abduction to living through Israeli airstrikes, Syrian shelling, militia clashes and siege. This story isn't just personal—it's universal, shedding light on the hidden trauma war leaves in its wake.This memoir is a compelling read for those intrigued by the profound impact of conflict on children's development. It presents a unique perspective on the absurdity of war, seen through the innocent eyes of a child in one of the world's most volatile regions.Readers will not only gain a deeper understanding of the devastating consequences of war but will also glimpse the enduring psychological scars it inflicts on its youngest victims. "Just Fireworks" is a must-read for those interested in Middle Eastern conflicts and the broader topic of war and its lasting repercussions. Read more

“Wonderful . . . One of the finest memoirs I’ve read.” — Philip Caputo, Washington PostIn the summer of 2006, racing through Lebanon to report on the Israeli invasion, Anthony Shadid found himself in his family’s ancestral hometown of Marjayoun. There, he discovered his great-grandfather’s once magnificent estate in near ruins, devastated by war. One year later, Shadid returned to Marjayoun, not to chronicle the violence, but to rebuild in its wake.So begins the story of a battle-scarred home and a journalist’s wounded spirit, and of how reconstructing the one came to fortify the other. In this bittersweet and resonant memoir, Shadid creates a mosaic of past and present, tracing the house’s renewal alongside the history of his family’s flight from Lebanon and resettlement in America around the turn of the twentieth century. In the process, he memorializes a lost world and provides profound insights into a shifting Middle East. This paperback edition includes an afterword by the journalist Nada Bakri, Anthony Shadid’s wife, reflecting on his legacy.“A poignant dedication to family, to home, and to history . . . Breathtaking.” — San Francisco Chronicle“Entertaining, informative, and deeply moving . . . House of Stone will stand a long time, for those fortunate enough to read it.” — Telegraph (London) Read more

“A book about young men transformed by war, written by a veteran whose dazzling literary gifts gripped my attention from the first page to the last.” —The Wall Street Journal “Friedman’s sober and striking new memoir . . . [is] on a par with Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried -- its Israeli analog.” —The New York Times Book Review It was just one small hilltop in a small, unnamed war in the late 1990s, but it would send out ripples that are still felt worldwide today. The hill, in Lebanon, was called the Pumpkin; flowers was the military code word for “casualties.” Award-winning writer Matti Friedman re-creates the harrowing experience of a band of young Israeli soldiers charged with holding this remote outpost, a task that would change them forever, wound the country in ways large and small, and foreshadow the unwinnable conflicts the United States would soon confront in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.Pumpkinflowers is a reckoning by one of those young soldiers now grown into a remarkable writer. Part memoir, part reportage, part history, Friedman’s powerful narrative captures the birth of today’s chaotic Middle East and the rise of a twenty-first-century type of war in which there is never a clear victor and media images can be as important as the battle itself. Raw and beautifully rendered, Pumpkinflowers will take its place among classic war narratives by George Orwell, Philip Caputo, and Tim O’Brien. It is an unflinching look at the way we conduct war today. Read more

The bestselling author of The Crusades Through Arab Eyes traces how civilizations have drifted apart throughout the 20th century and now lack the solidarity to address global threats to humankind. “Maalouf is a thoughtful, humane and passionate interlocutor.” — The New York Times Book ReviewThe United States is on the verge of losing all moral credibility. The European Union is in the process of breaking apart. The Arab world is embroiled in crisis. Thus divided and lacking solidarity, humanity is unable to address global threats to the environment and our health. How did we get here and what is yet to come? World-renowned scholar and bestselling author of The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, Amin Maalouf, is awake to the dangerous consequences we are about to face. In Adrift, Maalouf traces how civilizations have drifted apart throughout the 20th century, mixing personal narrative and historical analysis to provide a warning signal for the future. 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

Israel’s Struggle with Hezbollah is a “terrific read, insightful and interesting. A worthwhile addition to the much-needed discussion on the threat Iran poses and the price Lebanon and the region have paid.” — Erez D. Maisel, Brigadier General (IDF Military Reserve)A comprehensive yet highly readable account of the Hezbollah threat to Israel’s security. Critical reading for all those to whom Israel’s security is precious—and who want to do something about it. — Prof. Chuck Freilich, former deputy national security advisor, Israel, and author of Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change.A fierce battle looms between the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah and the state of Israel. While past wars have been grueling, the next one promises to be far more painful—for both sides. Lurking behind all of this is the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, which has worked overtime for the last several decades to hasten the demise of the Jewish state.Drawing upon countless hours of interviews with Israeli officials and top analysts, author Clifford Sobin’s book draws out the contours of this looming battle in great detail. — Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research at the Foundation for Defense of DemocraciesWritten by an expert who has spent years studying security issues in northern Israel and who is a member of the International Advisory Board for a northern Israel research and education center, this blow-by-blow history explores Hezbollah’s origins, its malignant growth, Israel’s response, and its present readiness to meet Hezbollah’s challenge. By interweaving thorough research and observations while crisscrossing the region with intimate and thought-provoking perspectives gained from experts, many of which who live in northern Israel, readers will come to learn the dangers Israel faces from Iran’s creation, Hezbollah.The book begins with a harrowing hypothetical, but all too likely, scenario that encompasses the opening moments of a war with Israel started by Hezbollah. Following that, the book comprises four parts:Part One–The first four chapters trace the creation of Lebanon, its civil war, the impact of the Palestinian terrorists that took over southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah’s dawn. The rest of this section follows the rise of Hezbollah, its conflicts with Israel in Lebanon, the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, and post-war tensions.Part Two–This section takes off with Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria’s civil war, Hezbollah’s capability today, its worldwide criminal activities, and its involvement in Lebanese politics. The action then moves to Iran, which is featured in the next two chapters that highlight Iran's involvement with Hezbollah in recent years and Iran’s other proxies. This section ends with UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces, the two armed groups charged by the United Nations in southern Lebanon to control Hezbollah, and their failure to do so.Part Three–The third portion of the book focuses on Israel’s readiness to confront Hezbollah today. Here, you will find details concerning Israel’s present military capability, including shortcomings, plans to manage its home front during a war, Israel’s deterrence of Hezbollah, and the IDF's campaign between wars. Next, you will learn about the use of information as a weapon and Israel’s willingness to confront Hezbollah.Part Four - The last two chapters contain a call for action for both Israel and the reader with specific suggestions to ensure that Hezbollah will not meet its objectives.Propelled by Sobin’s passion for the region and presented in a conversational style, this unforgettable narrative is required reading for learning about a critical part of Israel’s past, present, and future. Read more

On July 12, 2006, Israel went to war with Hezbollah in response to the killing and capture of Israeli soldiers along the southern Lebanese border. Believed at the time by many in the West to be an overreaction to a relatively minor border incident resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths in Lebanon, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border, and the deaths of dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians. More important to Israeli nation security, the war exposed basic flaws in Israel’s national security assumptions, and defense strategy.This study reveals that Israel went to war without having clearly defined its critical political, diplomatic, or military goals and objectives. In the years immediately prior to the beginning of the war the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) rejected the long proven principles of war in favor of a novel, incoherent, and confusing doctrine. The war revealed the debilitating impact of a long counterinsurgency campaign on training, and traditional combined arms capabilities. Finally, despite the superb performance of the Israeli Air Force (IAF), airpower and technology proved to be inconclusive and a poor substitute for well-trained resolute maneuver forces directly engaging enemy forces. Read more

The award-winning, powerful portrait of life in the Middle East, that weaves history, cuisine, and firsthand reporting into a fearless, intimate exploration of everyday survival.In the fall of 2003, as Iraq descended into civil war, Annia Ciezadlo spent her honeymoon in Baghdad. For the next six years, she lived in Baghdad and Beirut, where she dodged bullets during sectarian street battles, chronicled the Arab world’s first peaceful revolution, and watched Hezbollah commandos invade her Beirut neighborhood. Throughout all of it, she broke bread with Sunnis and Shiites, warlords and refugees, matriarchs and mullahs. Day of Honey is her story of the hunger for food and friendship during wartime—a communion that feeds the soul as much as the body. In lush, fiercely intelligent prose, Ciezadlo uses food and the rituals of eating to uncover a vibrant Middle East most Americans never see. We get to know people like Roaa, a young Kurdish woman whose world shrinks under occupation to her own kitchen walls; Abu Rifaat, a Baghdad book lover who spends his days eavesdropping in the ancient city’s legendary cafés; and the unforgettable Umm Hassane, Ciezadlo’s sardonic Lebanese mother-in-law, who teaches her to cook rare family recipes (included in a mouthwatering appendix of Middle Eastern comfort food). From dinner in downtown Beirut to underground book clubs in Baghdad, Day of Honey is a profound exploration of everyday survival—a moving testament to the power of love and generosity to transcend the misery of war. Read more

Silenced in Beirut: American Businessman Amer Fakhoury’s Six-Month Ordeal as a Hostage in Lebanon is a heartrending, harrowing, yet illuminating memoir by four devoted daughters recounting the false arrest, cruel confinement, and induced cancer inflicted on their father by the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese government from September 2019 to March 2020.It is the first complete telling of the headline-making story of Amer Fakhoury, a successful American businessman, who was lured to his native Lebanon by purposely deceptive assurances that the country would again welcome members of the prosperous Christian middle class who fled for their lives as a vengeance-filled Hezbollah terrorist militia took over Lebanon in 2000.In this novelistic memoir written in the third person, Guila, Mandy, Macy, and Zoya Fakhoury describe the illegal detention and physical and medical torture of their father; the show trial by a corrupt court system determined to find him guilty; the aggressive bipartisan intervention of US officials, from President Donald Trump to Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) to obtain his release; and the conditions that caused an exceptionally fit man to succumb in a matter of months to fourth-stage cancer. Through flashbacks, they intersperse earlier instances in their father’s life that shed light on the ordeal he endured amid the hostage crisis.Along the way, readers learn about the politics of Lebanon and gain a firsthand lesson in how beautiful places are in particular danger of being overrun by the worst people—and how this once-prosperous land is today on the verge of starvation and economic collapse and is likely to again be cursed with front-page news headlines.Written in an easy-to-read and concise style, the book resurfaces the forgotten and grossly misunderstood history of Lebanon’s noblest fighters, the South Lebanese Army, for whom Amer Fakhoury risked his life and because of whom the leadership in Beirut thought he should die. Told by four young women whose childhood home was routinely invaded by Hezbollah yet who went on to become successful scientists and engineers, Silenced in Beirut combines the political and the personal—the intrigue of a political kidnapping amid the love and light of family and faith. Read more