This edited volume presents ground-breaking empirical research on the media in political transition in Tunisia, Turkey and Morocco. Focusing on developments in the wake of the region’s upheavals in 2011, it offers a new theoretical framework for understanding mediascapes in the confessional and hybrid-authoritarian systems of the Middle East.In this book, media scholars focus on three themes: the media’s structure as an expression of governance, the media’s function as a reflection...

PEN/West Award Finalist" Told with energy, perception and great charm. . . . For anyone who wants to . . . gain insight into the great cultural and political richness of Iran, past, present and future, this book is a marvelous introduction."--Fred Halliday, Los Angeles TimesIran was the first country in the Middle East to develop an oil industry, and oil has been central to its tumultuous twentieth-century history. A finalist for the PEN/West Award, Blood and Oil tel...

A BEAUTIFUL TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING MASTERPIECE WITH A NEW PREFACE FROM THE AUTHOR‘A magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and political acuteness’ Hermione Lee, chair of the Booker Prize judgesHigh in the Himalayas sits a dilapidated mansion, home to three people, each dreaming of another time.The judge, broken by a world too messy for justice, is haunted by his ...

Over the centuries the Middle East has confounded the dreams of conquerors and peacemakers alike. This now-classic book, fully updated to 2009, follows the historic struggles of the region over the last two hundred years, from Napoleon's assault on Egypt, through the slow decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire, to the painful emergence of modern nations, the Palestinian question and Islamic resurgence.For this third edition, Economist journalist and Middle East correspondent Nicola...

Situated at the crossroads of three continents, the Middle East has confounded the ambition of conquerors and peacemakers alike. Christianity, Judaism and Islam all had their genesis in the region but with them came not just civilization and religion, but also some of the great struggles of history. Shifting Sands: A Pocket Essential History of the Middle East makes sense of the shifting sands of Middle Eastern History, beginning with the early cultures of the area and movi...

Robert D. Kaplan is one of our leading international journalists, someone who can explain the most complicated and volatile regions and show why they’re relevant to our world. In Surrender or Starve, Kaplan illuminates the fault lines in the Horn of Africa, which is emerging as a crucial region for America’s ongoing war on terrorism.Reporting from Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, Kaplan examines the factors behind the famine that ravaged the region in the 198...

“Riveting . . . This thorough work is immensely detailed yet readable and continuously engaging.” —Publishers WeeklyAn immersive, gripping account of the rise and fall of Iran's glamorous Pahlavi dynasty, written with the cooperation of the late Shah's widow, Empress Farah, Iranian revolutionaries and US officials from the Carter administration.In this remarkably human portrait of one of the twentieth century's most complicated per...

The relationship between America and Pakistan is based on mutual incomprehension and always has been. Pakistan -- to American eyes -- has gone from being a quirky irrelevance, to a stabilizing friend, to an essential military ally, to a seedbed of terror. America -- to Pakistani eyes -- has been a guarantee of security, a coldly distant scold, an enthusiastic military enabler, and is now a threat to national security and a source of humiliation.The countries are not merely at odds....

As Ambassador and Special Envoy on Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992, Peter Tomsen has had close relationships with Afghan leaders and has dealt with senior Taliban, warlords, and religious leaders involved in the region's conflicts over the last two decades. Now Tomsen draws on a rich trove of never-before-published material to shed new light on the American involvement in the long and continuing Afghan war.This book offers a deeply informed perspective on how Afghanistan's history as...

By the author of Destiny Disrupted: An enlightening, lively, accessible, history of Afghanistan from 1840 to today, from the Afghan point of view, that illuminates how Great Power conflicts have interrupted an ongoing, internal struggle to take form as a nation.Five times in the last two centuries, some great power has tried to invade, occupy, or otherwise take control of Afghanistan. And as Tamim Ansary shows in this illuminating history, every interventi...

For more than four decades, Libya has been something of an enigma to outsiders. Ruled by the despotic and unstable Muammar Gaddafi since he led a military coup in 1969, it has vast oil wealth and one of the highest standards of living in Africa. Yet it has also been one of the most prolific state sponsors of terrorism (supplying arms and explosives to the IRA, perpetrating the Lockerbie bombing) and dissent has, until recently, been crushed ruthlessly. In early 2011 a popu...

An "absorbing" account of the CIA's 1953 coup in Iran—essential reading for anyone concerned about Iran's role in the world today ( Harper's Magazine).In August 1953, the Central Intelligence Agency orchestrated the swift overthrow of Iran's democratically elected leader and installed Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in his place. When the 1979 Iranian Revolution deposed the shah and replaced his puppet government with a radical Islamic republic under Ayatollah ...