Middle World

Tolkien and the Great War tells for the first time the full story of how he embarked on the creation of Middle-earth in his youth as the world around him was plunged into catastrophe. This biography reveals the horror and heroism that he experienced as a signals officer in the Battle of the Somme and introduces the circle of friends who spurred his mythology to life.

Drawn by a fascination with Egypt's rich history and culture, Peter Hessler moved with his wife and twin daughters to Cairo in 2011. He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo's neighborhoods, and visit the legendary archaeological digs of Upper Egypt. After his years of covering China for The New Yorker, friends warned him Egypt would be a much quieter place. But not long before he arrived, the Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and now the country was in chaos.

David Rundell - one of America's foremost experts on Saudi Arabia - explains how the country has been stable for so long, why it is less so today, and what is most likely to happen in the future. The book is based on the author's close contacts and intimate knowledge of the country where he spent 15 years living and working as a diplomat. Vision or Mirage demystifies one of the most powerful, but least understood, states in the Middle East and is essential for anyone interested in the power dynamics and politics of the Arab world.

The prophet Al Mustafa has lived in the city of Orphalese for 12 years and is about to board a ship that will carry him home. He is stopped by a group of people with whom he discusses topics such as life and the human condition. The book is divided into chapters dealing with love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

Best-selling author Neal Bascomb has garnered critical acclaim for such riveting nonfiction as Higher and Red Mutiny. Based on extensive interviews and previously classified details, Hunting Eichmann is a compelling account of the relentless hunt for the nefarious Adolf Eichmann.

Rafe isn't exactly considered a winner in Hills Village Middle School, to say the least, but everything's about to change: He's won a school-wide art competition, and the fabulous prize is getting to jet-set off to Australia for a whirlwind adventure! But Rafe soon finds that living in the Land Down Under is harder than he could've ever imagined.

The Arabic legacy of science and philosophy has long been hidden from the West. British-Iraqi physicist Jim Al-Khalili unveils that legacy to fascinating effect by returning to its roots in the hubs of Arab innovation that would advance science and jump-start the European Renaissance.

Since the Second World War, Arab armed forces have consistently punched below their weight. They have lost many wars that by all rights they should have won, and in their best performances only ever achieved quite modest accomplishments. Over time, soldiers, scholars, and military experts have offered various explanations for this pattern.

Today, most Westerners still see the war in Afghanistan as a contest between democracy and Islamist fanaticism. That war is real, but it sits atop an older struggle between Kabul and the countryside, between order and chaos, between a modernist impulse to join the world and the pull of an older Afghanistan - a tribal universe of village republics permeated by Islam. Now, Tamim Ansary draws on his Afghan background, Muslim roots, and Western and Afghan sources to explain history from the inside out and to illuminate the long, internal struggle that the outside world has never fully understood.

The Three Edwards, third in Thomas B. Costain's survey of Britain under the Plantagenets, covers the years between 1272 and 1377 when three Edwards ruled England. Edward I brought England out of the Middle Ages. Edward II had a tragic reign but gave his country Edward III, who ruled gloriously, if violently.

After a mostly-successful stint at Hills Valley Middle School, Rafe is excited to visit the incredible city of London with his class. Sightseeing around a foreign country sounds like a blast, until Rafe finds out his roommate is Miller the Killer, bully extraordinaire! Then he's forced to work on a class project side by side with his crush Jeanne Galletta and her too-perfect boyfriend, which might be even worse than rooming with Miller.

Peter Frankopan lehrt uns, die Geschichte neu zu sehen – indem er nicht Europa, sondern den Nahen und Mittleren Osten zum Ausgangspunkt macht. Hier entstanden die ersten Hochkulturen und alle drei monotheistischen Weltreligionen; ein Reichtum an Gütern, Kultur und Wissen, der das Alte Europa seit jeher sehnsüchtig nach Osten blicken ließ.

The girl does not respond to questions in any language and remains silent, even when she is threatened, harassed, and mistreated over several days. The only clue to her identity is a tattered shoulder bag containing papers that refer to people named Shauzia, Nooria, Leila, Asif, Hassan - and Parvana. As she waits for foreign military forces to determine her fate, she remembers the past four years of her life. Reunited with her mother and sisters, she has been living in a village where her mother managed to open a school for girls.

An alphabetical exploration of the people, geography, animals, plants, history, and culture of Israel.

This book continues the story of the Fatimids from their newly founded capital of Cairo. Introducing the figures who moulded the empire, Shainool Jiwa charts the expansion of the Fatimids, the reasons behind their ultimate fall by the hand of Saladin, and the legacy that continues with the living Ismaili communities today.

"Küçük hanımlar, küçük beyler! Sizler hepiniz geleceğin bir gülü, yıldızı ve ikbal ışığısınız. Memleketi asıl ışığa boğacak olan sizsiniz. Kendinizin ne kadar önemli, değerli olduğunuzu düşünerek ona göre çalışınız. Sizlerden çok şey bekliyoruz."

The Kingdom is the story of a country - a country of astonishing contrasts, where routine computer printouts open with the words “In the name of God,” where men who grew up in goat-hair tents now dominate the money markets of the world, and where murderers and adulterers are publicly executed in the street. By its own reckoning, this country is just entering the 15th century. The Kingdom is also the story of a family - a family that has fought its way from poverty and obscurity into wealth and power.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize - winning historian Barbara Tuchman explores the complex relationship of Britain to Palestine that led to the founding of the modern Jewish state - and to many of the problems that plague the Middle East today.

In this, his final work, finished only weeks before his passing, Peres offers a long-awaited examination of the crucial turning points in Israeli history through the prism of having been a decision maker and eyewitness. Told with the frankness of someone aware this would likely be his final statement, No Room for Small Dreams spans decades and events, but as much as it is about what happened, it is about why it happened.

A Medieval Life offers a biography of one woman, a portrait of her world, and an introduction to historical method. Written in a clear and accessible style, it reworks a well-loved book to provide an entirely new resource for students, teachers, and general listeners. Like Cecilia Penifader, most people in the Middle Ages were peasants, humble people living socially below the knights, bishops, and kings who figure so large in history books. Judith M. Bennett shows that peasants, too, made history.