Middle World

Hundreds of thousands of Kurds were murdered under the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein. Some four thousand Kurdish villages were destroyed. Betrayed again and again by the nations of the world, the Kurds were as decimated as any people in history. Then came the Kurdish Miracle, that combination of ancient wisdom and modern economic genius that is now making the Kurdish homeland one of the most prosperous places on earth.

In 2015, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin warned that the country’s citizens were dividing into tribes: by class and ethnicity, by geography, and along lines of faith. In Twelve Tribes, award-winning author Ethan Michaeli portrays this increasingly fractured nation by intertwining interviews with Israelis of all tribes into a narrative of social and political change.

The culmination of almost forty years at the highest levels of policymaking and scholarship, Grand Delusion is Steven Simon’s tour de force, offering a comprehensive and deeply informed account of U.S. engagement in the Middle East. Simon begins with the Reagan administration, when American perception of the region shifted from a cluster of faraway and frequently skirmishing nations to a shining, urgent opportunity for America to (in Reagan’s words) “serve the cause of world peace and the future of mankind.”

On September 6, 1970, twelve-year-old Martha Hodes and her thirteen-year-old sister were flying unaccompanied back to New York City from Israel when their plane was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and forced to land in the Jordan desert. Too young to understand the sheer gravity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Martha coped by suppressing her fear and anxiety. Nearly a half-century later, her memories of those six days and nights as a hostage are hazy and scattered.

In the summer of 2000, the most decorated soldier in Israel's history - Ehud Barak - set himself a challenge as daunting as any he had faced on the battlefield: to secure a final peace with the Palestinians. He would propose two states for two peoples, with a shared capital in Jerusalem. He knew the risks of failure. But he also knew the risks of not trying: letting slip perhaps the last chance for a generation to secure genuine peace. It was a moment of truth.

World history began in the Persian Gulf. The ancient port cities that dotted its coastlines created the first global seaboard, a place from where faiths and cultures from around the world set sail and made contact. More than a history, The Center of the World shows us that contradictions that define our modern age have always been present.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, two of bin Laden’s key lieutenants: the masterminds behind the attacks of September 11. Based on the only interview these masterminds of terror ever gave to the media as well as extensive follow-up research, Capture or Kill may be the closest we will get to the full inside story of the plot.

The unfruitful works of darkness cry out for those being called into His marvelous light. Our story begins on February 14th, 2023, at 2:30 am in Tiberias, Israel. The unscheduled crescent moon rose, shining blood red over the sea of Galilee, bringing three warnings. The blood moon is a symbol of the power of darkness, a symbol of death.

As World War II raged in North Africa, General Erwin Rommel was guided by an uncanny sense of his enemies' plans and weaknesses. In the summer of 1942, he led his Axis army swiftly and terrifyingly toward Alexandria, with the goal of overrunning the entire Middle East. Each step was informed by detailed updates on British positions. The Nazis, somehow, had a source for the Allies' greatest secrets.

Going far beyond a military account, Segev re-creates the crisis in Israel before 1967, showing how economic recession, a full grasp of the Holocaust's horrors, and the dire threats made by neighbor states combined to produce a climate of apocalypse. He depicts the country's bravado after its victory and the mood revealed in a popular joke in which one soldier says to his friend, "Let's take over Cairo". The friend replies, "Then what shall we do in the afternoon?"

In Degrade and Destroy, the bestselling author and Wall Street Journal national security correspondent Michael R. Gordon reveals the strategy debates, diplomatic gambits, and military operations that shaped the struggle against the Islamic State. With extraordinary access to top U.S. officials and military commanders and to the forces on the battlefield, Gordon offers a riveting narrative that ferrets out some of the war’s most guarded secrets.

In an alternate 1875 America, electricity is forbidden, Native Americans and Yankees are united, and eldritch evil lurks in the shadows. Young Archie Dent knows there really are monsters in the world. His parents are members of the Septemberist Society, whose job it is to protect humanity from hideous giants called the Mangleborn. Trapped in underground prisons for a thousand years, the giant monsters have been all but forgotten - but now they are rising again as the steam-driven America of 1875 rediscovers electricity, the lifeblood of the Mangleborn.

When the U.S. began its withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Afghan Army instantly collapsed, Homeira Qaderi was marked for death at the hands of the Taliban. A celebrated author, academic, and champion for women's liberation, Homeira had achieved celebrity in her home country by winning custody of her son in a contentious divorce, a rarity in Afghanistan's patriarchal society.

Instead of being trained to fight, the few soldiers each year selected for Talpiot are taught how to think. In order to join this unit they have to commit to being in the army for 10 years, rather than the three years a normal soldier serves. Talpiots are taught advanced level physics, math, and computer science as they train with soldiers from every other branch of the IDF. The result: young men and women become research and development machines.

Gamal Abdel Nasser, the larger-than-life Egyptian president who ruled for eighteen years between the coup d'etat he led in 1952 and his death in 1970, is best known for wresting the Suez Canal from the British and French empires and befriending such iconic revolutionaries as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Yet there is a darker side to Nasser's regime. He was a brutal authoritarian, whose legacy, Alex Rowell argues, lies at the heart of the violent and repressive order that still prevails throughout the Arab world today.

In 2002, Thomas L. Friedman won his third Pulitzer Prize "for his clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat" after the attacks of September 11, 2001. This virtually unprecedented recognition underlines Friedman's unique ability to interpret and illuminate the world for American readers clearly, insightfully, and memorably.

" الحياة كرحلة بين جبال قريتنا كلما صعدت جبلًا وبلغت قمته يظهر خلفه جبل آخر فإما أن تعود أدراجك أو تواصل المسير لتبلغ قمة الجبل التالي"...هذه العبارة تلخص جانبا هامًا من شخصية "أرداس" بطل هذه الرواية التي تحمل اسمه للروائي المصري نادر حلاوة ، الذي صاغ رؤيته لدورات التغيير في المجتمعات من خلال عالم خيالي لا يمت بصلة الى كوكب الأرض!

" لأول مرة يدخل الضفة بعد غياب خمس، وكان اللقاء غيرما صوّره خياله، وأبدع في تزويقه وتنسيقه، كان يحس بأن الضفة قد باتت بحجم القمقم، وإن روحه التي ما فتئت تهتم في سموات الشوق والحنان قد سقطت من سابع سما....وبالرغم من خيالاته العاشقة المحمومة التي عايشها طوال سنوات طويلة جديبة محرومة، وأحلامه التي تنقله كل ليلة إلى الجسر وما وراء الجسر، وإلى اللوحات السماوية المفروشة على امتداد الوهاد والوديان، والشلال باللوز المكدس على البسطة أمام الشلال تحت أشجار الجوز الباسقة-كل ذلك قد انمحى-ولم يبقى في ذاكرته إلا هلوسات وكلمات تتردد بإطناب ورتابة.. البترول، سوريا، ماجستير، الولد مات... ولم الشمل....

إنه الكاتب الأديب، صاحب الروائع، الأستاذ صالح مرسي يسبر أغوار النفس، في زمن الاستعمار، حيث يتجلى الصراع بين الخضوع للأمر الواقع وبين رفضه والثورة عليه... وأيًا ما كانت النتائج. «البحار مندي»، «زغدانة»، «شبيطة»، «روبي» وغيرهم من أبطال هذه الرواية، هم رموز لهذا الصراع بشتى أشكاله ووسائله..

أحد مصوري مجلة ناشيونال جيوجرافيك ذهب إلى اللاجئين في أفغانستان منذ 17 سنة ، وألتقط أعظم وأجمل وأبلغ صورة في القرن العشرين، صورة فتاة خضراء العينين ،والعينان يشع من جمالهما: الخوف والقرف والتحدي والمرارة والجوع والصبر ،وهي أروع من لوحة (الجيوكندا)التي حارت البشرية في سر ابتسامتها .. وخطر للمصور أن يبحث عن الفتاة بعد مرور هذا الوقت .. وكان عليه ان يعثر عليها بين مائة مليون نسمة .. ولذلك ذهب إلى حيث ألتقى فيها أول مرة. تُرى هل يستطيع العثور عليها؟ استمع إلى رواية "من أجل عينيها" للكاتب الكبير أنيس منصور فقط وحصريًا على كتاب صوتي