World War Egypt

In this definitive history of the modern Arab world, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan draws extensively on Arab sources and texts to place the Arab experience in its crucial historical context for the first time. Tracing five centuries of Arab history, Rogan reveals that there was an age when the Arabs set the rules for the rest of the world. Today, however, the Arab world's sense of subjection to external powers carries vast consequences for both the region and Westerners who attempt to control it.

On January 25, 1952, British forces in the Suez Canal region took aggressive action when it ordered a police post in Ismailia to surrender for alleged support of anti-British activities. When the commander of the police post refused and mounted defenses, the British attacked, killing approximately 40 and injuring 70 Egyptian policemen. Outrage spilled out onto the streets in the form of protests and riots.  This coup had begun with the limited objective of overthrowing King Farouk, but it became a far larger, anti-West, anti-imperialist and non-aligned nationalist movement. 

It is 1942, and civilization as the world knows it teeters on its edge. Nazi Germany stands at the height of its power. Anton Rider is now a desert commando engaged in obliterating Nazi air bases and petrol dumps. His old friend, Ernst von Decken, a German soldier of fortune, has become the enemy. Meanwhile, in North Africa, the brilliant General Rommel's panzers threaten the Suez Canal, the oil fields of the Middle East, and the trade route to Asia.