A new kind of society is being built in Syria, but it's not one you would expect. Surrounded by deadly bands of ISIS and hostile Turkish forces, the people living in Syria's Rojava cantons are carving out one of the most radically progressive societies on the planet today. Western visitors have been astounded by the success of their project, a communally organised democracy which considers women's equality indispensable and rejects reactionary nationalist ideology whilst being fiercely ant...

Turkey occupies a strategic position in today's world: the only predominantly Muslim nation to be a member of NATO and an ally of Israel, it straddles both Europe and Asia. Turkey is the link between Islam and Western democracy, between Europe and the Middle East. In this concise introduction, Andrew Finkel, who has spent twenty years in Turkey writing about the country for publications such as The Economist and Time magazine, unravels Turkey's complexities. He sets the c...

When it invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the United States sought to do something previous foreign powers had never attempted: to create an Afghani state where none existed. More than a decade on, the new regime in Kabul remains plagued by illegitimacy and ineffectiveness. What happened? As Thomas Barfield shows, the history of previous efforts to build governments in Afghanistan does much to explain the difficulties besetting this newest experiment.Princeton Shorts are brief selection...

In July 2011, South Sudan was granted independence and became the world's newest country. Yet just two-and-a-half years after this momentous decision, the country was in the grips of renewed civil war and political strife. Hilde F. Johnson served as Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan from July 2011 until July 2014 and, as such, she was witness to the many challenges which the country faced as it struggled to...

The most comprehensive, profound, and accurate book ever written in the history of modern Sudan, Integration and Fragmentation of the Sudan: An African Renaissance, is an encyclopedia of ancient and modern history as well as the politics of Sudan. It is a library of data that discusses Sudan from its economic, political, and social standpoint since the Arab discovery and use of the term Bilad es Sudan up through the modern republic of the Sudan after which South and North Sudan collided in...

Praise for the 2005 Edition:"A passionate and highly readable account of the current tragedy that combines intimate knowledge of the region's history, politics, and sociology with a telling cynicism about the polite but ineffectual diplomatic efforts to end it. It is the best account available of the Darfur crisis."-Foreign Affairs"Does the conflict in Darfur, however bloody, qualify as genocide? Or does the application of the word 'genocide' to Da...

This book offers a novel, incisive and wide-ranging account of Libya's '17 February Revolution' by tracing how critical towns, communities and political groups helped to shape its course. Each community, whether geographical (e.g. Misrata, Zintan), tribal/communal (e.g. Beni Walid) or political (e.g. the Muslim Brotherhood) took its own path into the uprisings and subsequent conflict of 2011, according to their own histories and relationship to Muammar Qadhafi's regime. The story of each g...

Recent military interventions gone wrongIt was an exclusive lunch at a high-end Manhattan restaurant on 7 March 2011. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his A-team were present. It soon became clear that the main item on the menu was Libya, where it was alleged that the forces of Muammar Gaddafi were advancing on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi to crush all opposition. Over an $80 per head lunch, a small group of the world's most important diplomats from countries represented on...

World-renowned Iranian expert Homa Katouzian presents the first comprehensive introduction to one of the world’s most controversial and misunderstood countriesSince the 1979 revolution, Iran has been locked in conflict with the United States and Europe. Personified in the West by a series of bogeymen from Ayatollah Khomeini to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, this villainous mask obscures a far more complex identity, forged by a vibrant and chaotic history.Revealing th...

This concise history tells the story of Turkey, a country caught between the ideologies of East and West. From its beginnings as a disparate group of tribes to its status as the first secular republic in the Islamic world, Ahmad provides a full survey of Turkey’s chequered past. Covering nearly 1,000 years of history, from the eleventh-century invasion of Anatolia to attempts at European integration and involvement in the 2003 war with Iraq, Ahmad unpicks the debates and puts historical di...

In November 2011, an agreement brokered by the GCC brought an end to Yemen's tumultuous uprising. The National Dialogue Conference has opened a window of opportunity for change, bringing Yemen's main political forces together with groups that were politically marginalized. Yet, the risk of collapse is serious, and if Yemen is to remain a viable state, it must address numerous political, social and economic challenges. In this invaluable volume, experts with extensive Yemen experience provi...

Revolutions are difficult to understand, let alone predict. Egypt’s revolt last year was no exception. The military’s abandonment of Mubarak confused many observers, who had always assumed that the leader and the generals stood or fell together. But as the violence of the transitional period discredited the armed forces, academics fell back in relief on the same age-old assumptions about officers who rule from behind the scenes and change the figures on stage to preserve the status quo.