In Exit the Colonel, Ethan Chorin, a longtime Middle East scholar and one of the first American diplomats posted to Libya after the lifting of international sanctions, goes well beyond recent reporting on the Arab Spring to link the Libyan uprising to a flawed reform process, egregious human rights abuses, regional disparities, and inconsistent stories spun by Libya and the West to justify the Gaddafi regime's "rehabilitation." Exit the Colonel is based upon extensive interviews w...

In recognition of the 10th anniversary of the attack in Benghazi, a noted Libya expert and eyewitness to the attack provides a startling reconsideration of one of the defining controversies of our era.Ten years after an attack on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, cries of "Benghazi!" still echo across America. But instead of a landmark event to be taken seriously, it has become a punchline, an emp...

Part anthology and part travelogue, Translating Libya presents the country through the eyes of sixteen Libyan short story writers and one American diplomat.Translating Libya, published in 2008, was one of the first books to introduce Libyan literature to an English-speaking audience. The updated 2014 revision includes a foreword by Ahmed Ibrahim Fagih, one of Libya's most recognised authors, and a new introduction by the author, in light of the Lib...

Malalai Joya has been called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan." At a constitutional assembly in Kabul in 2003, she stood up and denounced her country's powerful NATO-backed warlords. She was twenty-five years old. Two years later, she became the youngest person elected to Afghanistan's new Parliament. In 2007, she was suspended from Parliament for her persistent criticism of the warlords and drug barons and their cronies. She has survived four assassination attempts to da...

Have the diplomatic efforts of the Obama administration toward Iran failed? Was the Bush administration's emphasis on military intervention, refusal to negotiate, and pursuit of regime change a better approach? How can the United States best address the ongoing turmoil in Tehran? This book provides a definitive and comprehensive analysis of the Obama administration's early diplomatic outreach to Iran and discusses the best way to move toward more positive relations between the two discorda...

In the vein of Infidel comes this spellbinding memoir of survival and courage from Afghanistan’s most popular female politician.On the day Fawzia Koofi was born, her mother set her under the blazing Afghan sun to die. She was the nineteenth child of twenty-three in a family with seven wives, and her mother did not want another daughter. Despite severe burns that lasted into her teenage years, Fawzia survived and became the favourite child.In

An E-book to beat the bombing - Expose the Big Lie in time to stop the war. Syria's situation is truly serious, under ruthless attack by enemies within and without. The so-called Syrian uprising is actually a cynical US-engineered plot using mercenaries, wahhabi fanatics and corrupt NGO's. They are determined to smash this independent Arab socialist state where oil wealth is spent on human welfare, like Libya before it was torn apart in the same way. Neighboring nations move in for the kil...

Beginning in December 2010 popular revolt swept through the Middle East, shocking the world and ushering in a period of unprecedented unrest. Protestors took to the streets to demand greater freedom, democracy, human rights, social justice, and regime change. What caused these uprisings? What is their significance? And what are their likely consequences? In an engaging question-and-answer format, The Arab Uprisings explores all aspects of the revolutionary protests that have rocked the Mid...

A secular feminist army courageously challenges the Islamic StateIn war-torn northern Syria, a democratic society—based on secularism, ethnic inclusiveness, and gender equality—has won significant victories against the Islamic State, or Daesh, with women on the front lines as fierce warriors and leaders.A Road Unforeseen recounts the dramatic, underreported history of the Rojava Kurds, whose all-women militia was instrumental in the perilo...

Three men race against time to take possession of a sacred 5,000-year-old Buddhist sculpture: Khalid, a leading Pakistani antiquities dealer, arranges for the illegal importation of the statue from neighbouring Afghanistan. Ghalib, a wealthy art collector with political aspirations, has purchased the statue for his private collection. Adeel, a highly recommended ex-military officer, is hired by Khalid to transport the sculpture to its final destination.When Adeel first views the st...

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...

Ibn Battutah set out in 1325 from his native Tangier on the pilgrimage to Mecca. By the time he returned twenty-nine years later, he had visited most of the known world, travelling three times the distance Marco Polo covered. Spiritual backpacker, social climber, temporary hermit and failed ambassador, he braved brigands, blisters and his own prejudices. The outcome was a monumental travel classic.Captivated by this indefatigable man, award-winning travel writer Tim Mackintosh-Smit...