Middle World

The Islamic State, known as ISIS, exploded into the public eye in 2014 with startling speed and shocking brutality. It has captured the imagination of the global jihadist movement, attracting recruits in unprecedented numbers and wreaking bloody destruction with a sadistic glee that has alienated even the hardcore terrorists of its parent organization, al Qaeda. Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, two of America’s leading experts on terrorism, dissect the new model for violent extremism that ISIS has leveraged into an empire of death in Iraq and Syria, and an international network that is rapidly expanding in the Middle East, North Africa and around the world.

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.

Intrigue. Disease. Adventure. War. Invention. Famine. This is the story of how humankind emerged from the Dark Ages prepared for the coming age of enlightenment. There is a good reason why many fantasy epics are based on events that took place in the Middle Ages. For nearly a thousand years, people battled nature, disease, and each other to survive. Visionaries laid the foundations that today’s world is built upon and their inventions and innovations gave rise to literacy, education, medicine, engineering and more. Explorers opened trade to foreign lands and flooded Europe with luxuries including silk, tea, and gold. Nearly half a million people died of the black plague. The feudal system failed, and aristocratic power dwindled. In Medieval History - Including: The Holy Roman Empire, Vikings, the Crusades, and "Columbus" Reaching the New World you’ll get a quick trip through the turbulent Middle Ages that is sure to inspire deeper study.

The term Moor is a historical rather than an ethnic name. It is an invention of European Christians for the Islamic inhabitants of Maghreb (North Africa), Andalusia (Spain), Sicily and Malta, and was sometimes use to designate all Muslims. It is derived from Mauri, the Latin name for the Berbers who lived in the Roman province of Mauretania, which ranged across modern Algeria and Morocco. Saracen was another European term used to designate Muslims, though it usually referred to the Arabic peoples of the Middle East and derives from an ancient name for the Arabs, Sarakenoi.

The Iran hostage crisis was a watershed moment in American history. It was America's first showdown with Islamic fundamentalism, a confrontation at the forefront of American policy to this day. It was also a powerful dramatic story that captivated the American people, launched yellow-ribbon campaigns, made celebrities of the hostage's families, and crippled the reelection campaign of President Jimmy Carter.

As the tee-shirt slogans say, “If you can read this, thank the Phoenicians". The Phoenician achievements include creating the world’s first alphabet, which consisted of 22 consonant letters. If you’re sipping wine as you read, that’s another reason to thank the Phoenicians. From their travels, they learned which grapes were most suited for winemaking and spread those vines to the places along their trading routes. The Phoenicians were the masters of the Mediterranean Sea.

When thinking about America's role in the world, Dwight Eisenhower, George H. W. Bush, and Barack Obama may not seem to have a lot in common. But they do. While divided by background, generation, and political party, they exemplify a distinct and underappreciated tradition of American leadership: The Middle Way. As the scholar and former senior foreign policy official Derek Chollet shows in this deeply researched book, these three presidents took a centrist - and effective - approach to foreign policy.

The Hittites lived among gods and kings and captivated the mysterious Sir Lawrence of Arabia, among many eager minds. Who were they? Simply warlike conquerors on a mission to impose Hittite power on the world? How did they become part of the elite highly-exclusive club of kings as great as Egyptian, Assyrian, and Babylonian empires of the second millennium BCE? They created a complex system of collective governance and changed the metallurgy of the ancient world. This mysterious empire remained the unknown fourth empire and thanks to their tradition of preservation we continue solving mysteries buried in their ancient past.

Shortly after Emperor Hadrian came to power in the early second century CE, he decided to seal off Scotland from Roman Britain with an ambitious wall stretching from sea to sea. The sheer scale of Hadrian’s Wall still impresses people today, but as the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the late fifth century, Hadrian’s Wall was abandoned and Roman control of the area broke down. Little is known of this period of British history, but soon the Anglo-Saxons showed up and began to settle the land, creating a patchwork of little kingdoms and starting a new era of British history.

Our relationship with China remains one of the most complex and rapidly evolving and is perhaps one of the most important to our nation's future. Here, John Pomfret, the author of the best-selling Chinese Lessons, takes us deep into these two countries' shared history and illuminates in vibrant, stunning detail every major event, relationship, and ongoing development that has affected diplomacy between these two booming, influential nations.

After the long period of cultural decline known as the Dark Ages, Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science, and began to develop a vision of Western society that remains at the heart of Western civilization today.

Women are expected to be many things. They should be creative, but not crazy; passionate, but not angry. They should be fertile, feminine and self-reliant, not barren, butch or solitary. Women, in other words, are caught between social expectations and a much more complicated reality. In The Defiant Middle, Kaya Oakes draws on the wisdom of women mystics and explores how transitional eras or living in marginalized female identities can be both spiritually challenging and wonderfully freeing, ultimately resulting in a reinvented way of seeing the world and changing it.

Born to a violently dysfunctional home in working-class Denmark, Lisbeth Zornig Andersen and her three older brothers were bounced between foster care and state-run institutions, then back again to their chemically dependent mother and sadistic stepfather. For Lisbeth, it was a childhood without perimeters. It was blighted by poverty, sexual abuse, neglect, betrayal, and further victimization by the broken Danish social services system that forced Lisbeth to live where and how it saw fit.

The product of painstaking research and countless interviews, A High Price offers a nuanced, definitive historical account of Israel's bold but often failed efforts to fight terrorist groups. Israel's debacles in Lebanon against groups like the Lebanese Hizballah are examined in-depth, as is the country's problematic response to Jewish terrorist groups that have struck at Arabs and Israelis seeking peace.

In Going Home, Raja Shehadeh, the Orwell Prize-winning author of Palestinian Walks, takes us on a series of journeys around his hometown of Ramallah. Set in a single day - the day that happens to be the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank - the audiobook is a powerful and moving record and chronicle of the changing face of his city.

In Bana's own words, and featuring short, affecting chapters by her mother, Fatemah, Dear World is not just a gripping account of a family endangered by war; it offers a uniquely intimate child's perspective on one of the biggest humanitarian crises in history. Bana has lost her best friend, her school, her home, and her homeland. But she has not lost her hope - for herself and for other children around the world who are victims and refugees of war and deserve better lives.

America’s chaotic retreat from Afghanistan in 2021 was nothing short of a horror show. Women and children were trampled to death outside the gates of the Kabul airfield. Desperate Afghans fell from the landing gear of departing planes. Taliban fighters mercilessly whipped and humiliated U.S. civilians. Countless Afghan interpreters were abandoned to the mercy of the Taliban after risking their lives alongside American troops for years. And thirteen U.S. service members were murdered in an ISIS suicide bombing. Still, the full story is worse than anyone imagined.

"Les Mille et Une Nuits" est un recueil anonyme de contes populaires en arabe, d'origine persane et indienne. Il est constitué de nombreux contes enchâssés et de personnages mis en miroir les uns par rapport aux autres.

It isn't that Abby Carson can't do her schoolwork, it's just that she doesn't like doing it. And that means she's pretty much failing sixth grade. When a warning letter is sent home, Abby realizes that all her slacking off could cause her to be held back -- for real! Unless she wants to repeat the sixth grade, she'll have to meet some specific conditions, including taking on an extra-credit project: find a pen pal in a foreign country. Simple enough (even for a girl who hates homework).

Laura Kasinof studied Arabic in college and moved to Yemen a few years later - after a friend at a late-night party in Washington, DC, recommended the country as a good place to work as a freelance journalist. When she first moved to Sanaa in 2009, she was the only American reporter based in the country. She quickly fell in love with Yemen’s people and culture, in addition to finding herself the star of a local TV soap opera.