In Patrick Cockburn on Iraq: The West Shakes Up The Middle East, The Independent continues its series of History As It Happened books. Over the past 15 years the US and its allies should have had the greatest interest in maintaining a Middle East status quo. But, as Cockburn details in a series of insightful articles published in The Independent, the West has been the most radical instrument of change in the Middle East.

In Patrick Cockburn on Iraq: The West Shakes Up The Middle East, The Independent continues its series of History As It Happened books. Over the past 15 years the US and its allies should have had the greatest interest in maintaining a Middle East status quo. But, as Cockburn details in a series of insightful articles published in The Independent, the West has been the most radical instrument of change in the Middle East.

Cockburn was the first Western journalist to warn of the dangers posed by Islamic State. His originality and breadth of vision make The Age of Jihad the most in-depth analysis of the regional crisis in the Middle East to date.2001 heralded a new age of disintegration in the Middle East. This has had a murderous impact on the people who live there but also the world beyond. Beginning with the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, Cockburn explores the vast geopolitical struggle t...

Born of the Iraqi and Syrian civil wars, the Islamic State astonished the world in 2014 by creating a powerful new force in the Middle East. By combining religious fanaticism and military prowess, the new self-declared caliphate poses a threat to the political status quo of the whole region.In The Rise of Islamic State, Patrick Cockburn describes the conflicts behind a dramatic unraveling of US foreign policy. He shows how the West created the conditions for ISIS's explosi...

Since the upsurge of the Arab Spring in 2011, the Syrian civil war has claimed in excess of 200,000 lives, with an estimated 8 million Syrians, more than a third of the country's population, forced to flee their homes. Militant Sunni groups, such as ISIS, have taken control of large swathes of the nation. The impact of this catastrophe is now being felt on the streets of Europe and the United States.Veteran Middle East expert Charles Glass combines reportage, analysis, and history ...

Radical journalist Claud Cockburn fought successfully against the political and media establishment, writing for publications as varied as The Times and Private Eye. To Graham Greene, he was the greatest journalist of the twentieth century.Born in China in 1904 and educated alongside Evelyn Waugh, Cockburn launched into a stellar career as a Times correspondent, first in Berlin, then New York, interviewing Al Capone in Chicago, and finally Washington. He resigned in 1932 to start T...

In February 2003, Patrick Cockburn secretly crossed the Tigris river from Syria into Iraq just before the US/British invasion, and has covered the war ever since. In The Occupation, he provides a vivid and disturbing picture of a country in turmoil, and the dangers and privations endured by its people.The Occupation explores the mosaic of communities in Iraq, the US and Britain's failure to understand the country they were invading and how this led to fatal mistake...

The Future of Religious Minorities in the Middle East addresses the domestic and international politics that have created conditions for contemporary religious cleansing in the Middle East. It provides a platform for a host of distinguished scholars, journalists, human rights activists, and political practitioners. The contributors come from diverse political, cultural, and religious backgrounds; each one drawing on a deep wellspring of scholarship, experience, sobriety, and passion. Colle...

In Emergence of ISIS: Battling the Menace, Patrick Cockburn provides unique insights into the Islamic State scourge. He traces the origin of ISIS, confronts the horror of its methods, and details its threat to the Middle East and the world at large through a series of his articles published by The Independent.

In this urgent and timely book, Patrick Cockburn writes the first draft of the history of the current crisis in the Middle East.Here he charts the period from the recapture of Mosul in 2017 to Turkey's attack on Kurdish territory in November 2019, and recounts the new phase in the wars of disintegration that have plagued the region, leading to the assassination of Iranian General Sulemani.Cockburn offers panoramic on-the-ground analysis as well as a lifetime's study of the r...

Is the fall of ISIS the end of the perpetual war in the Middle East?In this urgent and timely book, Patrick Cockburn writes the first draft of the history of the current crisis in the Middle East. Here he charts the period from the recapture of Mosul in 2017 to Turkey's attack on Kurdish territory in November 2019, and recounts the new phase in the wars of disintegration that have plagued the region. The ground battle with the caliphate is perhaps over, but was thi...

It took a quarter-century of bad strategy, including more than a dozen years of Western air attacks and invasions in the Middle East, to bring the so-called "Islamic State" into existence. Can we somehow manage to avoid the well-trodden path of overreacting to the provocations of Islamist extremists?With the rise of ISIS, a new style of terrorism that publicly gloats over acts of extreme cruelty has reawakened the fears of the global audience. But in Don't Pani...