Middle East Revolution

An astonishing retelling of 20th-century history from the Ottoman perspective, delivering profound new insights into World War I and the contemporary Middle East. Between 1911 and 1922, a series of wars would engulf the Ottoman Empire and its successor states, in which the central conflict, of course, was World War I - a story we think we know well. As Sean McMeekin shows us in this revelatory new history of what he calls the "wars of the Ottoman succession", we know far less than we think.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 has been described as an epochal event, called the peak of 20th century Islamic revivalism and revitalization, and analyzed as the one key incident that continues to impact politics across Iran, the Middle East, and the even the world as a whole. As a phenomenon that led to the creation of the first modern Islamic Republic in the world, the revolution marked the victory of Islam over secular politics, and Iran quickly became the aspiring model for Islamic fundamentalists and revivalists across the globe, regardless of nationality, culture, or religious sect.

In 2003 Rachel Aspden arrived in Egypt as a 23-year-old journalist. She found a country on the brink of change. The two thirds of Egypt's eight million citizens under the age of 30 were stifled, broken, and frustrated, caught between a dictatorship that had nothing to offer them and their autocratic parents' generation, defined by tradition and obedience. In January 2011 the young people's patience ran out.

Bassem Youssef's incendiary satirical news program, Al-Bernameg ( The Program), chronicled the events of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, and the rise of Mubarak's successor, Mohamed Morsi. Youssef not only captured his nation's dissent, but stamped it with his own brand of humorous political criticism, in which the Egyptian government became the prime laughing stock. In Revolution for Dummies, Youssef recounts his life and offers hysterical riffs on hypocrisy, instability, and corruption.

The recent powerful wave of Middle East uprisings has fueled both hope and trepidation in the region and around the world as the ultimate fate - and fallout - of the Arab Spring continue to hang in the balance. Born and raised as a Muslim in Egypt and now living in the United States, Nonie Darwish brings an informed perspective to this carefully considered assessment of the potential outcome of the revolutions in the Middle East. This thought-provoking book will add to the ongoing debate on what the future holds.

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.

In 1979, Neda Toloui-Semnani’s parents left the United States for Iran to join the revolution. But the promise of those early heady days in Tehran was warped by the rise of the Islamic Republic. With the new regime came international isolation, cultural devastation, and profound personal loss for Neda. Her father was arrested and her mother was forced to make a desperate escape, pregnant and with Neda in tow.

The drama that shaped today’s Iran, from the Revolution to the present day. In 1979, seemingly overnight - moving at a clip some 30 years faster than the rest of the world - Iran became the first revolutionary theocracy in modern times. Since then, the country has been largely a black box to the West, a sinister presence looming over the horizon. But inside Iran, a breathtaking drama has unfolded since then, as religious thinkers, political operatives, poets, journalists, and activists have imagined and reimagined what Iran should be.

From the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller LAWRENCE IN ARABIA a stunningly revelatory narrative history of one of the most momentous events in modern times, the jaw-dropping stupidity of the American government, and the dawn of the age of religious nationalism.

A well-known novelist and journalist from the coastal city of Jableh, Samar Yazbek witnessed the beginning four months of the Syrian uprising first-hand and actively participated in a variety of public actions and budding social movements. With rare empathy and journalistic prowess Samar Yazbek compiled oral testimonies from ordinary Syrians all over the country. Filled with snapshots of exhilarating hope and horrifying atrocities, she offers us a wholly unique perspective on the Syrian uprising.

The U.S. government spends enormous resources each year on the gathering and analysis of intelligence, yet the history of American foreign policy is littered with missteps and misunderstandings that have resulted from intelligence failures. In Why Intelligence Fails, Robert Jervis examines the politics and psychology of two of the more spectacular intelligence failures in recent memory: the belief that the Shah in Iran was secure and stable in 1978, and the claim that Iraq had active WMD programs in 2002.

When James Montague first began covering football in the Middle East two decades ago, people asked him what future there could possibly be for the beautiful game in one of the most volatile regions in the world. In the years that followed, it would become one of the biggest stories in global sport, from the from revolutionary ultras of the Arab Spring and the takeover of some of the world's biggest clubs by the Emirati super rich, to Qatar's controversial journey towards hosting the 2022 World Cup finals.

Barely a year after the self-immolation of a young fruit seller in Tunisia, a vast wave of popular protest has convulsed the Middle East, overthrowing long-ruling dictators and transforming the region’s politics almost beyond recognition. But the biggest transformations of what has been labeled as the “Arab Spring” are yet to come. An insider to both American policy and the world of the Arab public, Marc Lynch shows that the fall of particular leaders is but the least of the changes that will emerge from months of unrest.

Despite the world's elation at the Arab Spring, shockingly little has changed politically in the Middle East; even frontliners Egypt and Tunisia continue to suffer repression, fixed elections, and bombings, while Syria descends into civil war. But in the midst of it all, a quieter revolution has begun to emerge, one that might ultimately do more to change the face of the region: Entrepreneurship.

Burning Country explores the complicated reality of life in present-day Syria with unprecedented detail and sophistication, drawing on new first-hand testimonies from opposition fighters, exiles lost in an archipelago of refugee camps, and courageous human rights activists. Yassin-Kassab and Al-Shami expertly interweave these stories with an incisive analysis of the militarization of the uprising, the rise of the Islamists and sectarian warfare, and the role of Syria’s government in exacerbating the brutalization of the conflict.

In this urgent and timely book, historian Ilan Pappé, argues that the beginning of the end of the Jewish state began in 2022 with the election of the most right-wing government in the nation’s history. Long known for his willingness to expose the myths Israeli society has been built upon, Pappé sets out his thoughts about the risks and opportunities emerging from the horrors of this historical moment, and the eight "mini-revolutions" that could pave the way to a better future.

The revolutions sweeping the Middle East in 2011 were unlike any the world had ever seen. Brutal regimes that had been in power for many decades were suddenly swarmed by unstoppable mobs of freedom seekers. Now, one of the key figures behind the Egyptian uprising tells the riveting inside story of what happened and presents lessons for all of us on how to unleash the power of crowds. Wael Ghonim was a little-known 30-year-old Google executive in the fall of 2010 when he anonymously launched a Facebook page to protest the death of an Egyptian man at the hands of security forces....

During the early years of the Iraq War, the US Army was unable to translate initial combat success into strategic and political victory. Iraq plunged into a complex insurgency, and defeating this insurgency required beating highly adaptive foes. A competition between the hierarchical and vertically integrated Army and networked and horizontally integrated insurgents ensued. The latter could quickly adapt and conduct networked operations in a decentralized fashion; the former was predisposed to fighting via prescriptive plans under a centralized command and control.

New York City - the Big Apple - transformed to a ghost town, where peaceful citizens dare not tread. Macy’s - symbol of American free enterprise - shut down. Rioting, looting, murder, attacks on police, destruction of monuments to American heroes in numerous American cities, all in the guise of “protests” against racism.

When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, in December 2010, sparking a wave of popular uprisings that would topple dictatorial regimes across North Africa and the Middle East, observers hailed the onset of a great “Arab Awakening.” But this wasn’t the first time people in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere across the region had taken to the streets demanding fundamental change.