Middle East

Why did the Ottoman Empire enter the First World War in late October 1914, months after the war's devastations had become clear? Were its leaders 'simple-minded,' 'below-average' individuals, as the doyen of Turkish diplomatic history has argued? Or, as...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781416577003Author Ronen BergmanFormat PaperbackPage Count 432Imprint The Free PressPublisher Simon & SchusterWeight(grams) 631gDimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm...

Based on his reading of top-secret files of the Israeli police and the prime minister's office, Hillel Cohen exposes the full extent of the crucial, and, until now, willfully hidden history of Palestinian collaboration with Israelis--and of the Arab...

A compelling history of the ancient schism that continues to divide the Islamic worldWhen Muhammad died in 632 without a male heir, Sunnis contended that the choice of a successor should fall to his closest companions, but Shi'a believed that God had...

Sheikh Mubarak was the founder of the modern state of Kuwait. But the man who actually led Kuwait to modernity was his son Abdullah Mubarak Al-Sabah, one of the most significant figures of Kuwait from the 1940s to Kuwaiti independence in 1961. Largely...

In this comprehensive and up to date history, from prehistoric proto-Indo-Iranian times to the post-Soviet period, Richard Foltz traces the complex linguistic, cultural and political history of the Tajiks, a Persian-speaking Iranian ethnic group from the...

In Going Home, Orwell Prize winning author Raja Shehadeh travels Ramallah and records the changing face of the city. Walking along the streets he grew up in, he tells the stories of the people, the relationships, the houses, and the businesses that were...

The Star in the Branches, James Peake's second collection, is an intense and heartfelt examination of memory, how it pains and consoles, deepens and shrinks, is both equal to, and less than, the objects and people who come to reside there. At either end...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780143129691Author Thomas F. MaddenFormat PaperbackPage Count 400Imprint Penguin USAPublisher Penguin Putnam Inc

2017 marked three important anniversaries for the Palestinian people: 100 years since the Balfour Declaration; 50 years since the Six-day War; and ten years since the Blockade of Gaza. As an act of penance, solidarity and hope, actor and musician Justin...

Qatar is a country of spectacular contrasts: from pearl fishing, its main industry until the 1930s; to gas and oil, which generate immense wealth today; to the triumph and controversy of hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Almost a lifetime since he grew...

The pioneering tank crew of the First World War would be astonished by the advances made in the design of armoured fighting vehicles over the last 100 years which have resulted in the Challenger 2, the current main battle tank in service with the British...

From 'Operation Cast Lead' to the recent assault on the Gaza flotilla, both the severity and the notoriety of Israel's many human rights abuses have begun to seep into the public consciousness and convince a growing international audience of the...

Three definitions of the word Yield give meaning to the odyssey undergone in Claire Dyer's third collection: a journey which sees a son become a daughter, and a mother a poet for both of them. Charting these transitions, the poems take us through...

An engrossing blend of travel writing and history, Drinking Arak off an Ayatollah's Beard traces one man's adventure-filled journey through today's Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, and describes his remarkable attempt to make sense of the present by...

The Iraq War is a visual record of the American-led Operation Iraqi Freedom of 2003, which resulted in the dramatic overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein. In a striking sequence of photographs Anthony Tucker-Jones shows how this was achieved by the...

Since its establishment in 1948, the state of Israel has not ceased to be a unique and controversial entity: vehemently opposed by some, and loyally supported by others. In this novel and original study, Colin Shindler tells the history of Israel through...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780692587058Author Rafic LabounFormat PaperbackPage Count 360Imprint Fatima BooksPublisher Fatima BooksWeight(grams) 481gDimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 19mm

A new history of Middle East oil and the deep roots of American violence in Iraq. Iraq has been the site of some of the United States' longest and most sustained military campaigns since the Vietnam War. Yet the origins of US involvement in the country...

'Fascinating' Guardian, 'Book of the Day''A truly masterly book... A tour de force that will be read for a very long time.' Peter HennessySelected by the New Statesman as an essential read for 2022Britain shaped the modern Middle East through the lines...

As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict persists, aspiring peacemakers continue to search for the precise territorial dividing line that will satisfy both Israeli and Palestinian nationalist demands. The prevailing view assumes that this struggle is nothing...

In this companion volume to his bestselling Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? Lester L. Grabbe provides the background history of the main ancient Near Eastern peoples and empires: Babylonia, Assyria, Urartu, Hittites, Amorites,...

Mary Montagu was one of the most extraordinary characters in the world. She was a self-educated intellectual, a free spirit, a radical, a feminist but also an entitled aristocrat and a society wit with powerful friends at court. In 1716 she travelled...

'If I were a voter in Britain, I would vote for [Jeremy Corbyn]' - Noam Chomsky, 2017Global Discontents is an essential guide to geopolitics and how to fight back, from the world's leading public intellectualWhat kind of world are we leaving to our...

A powerful personal testimony and an urgent call for Israel to change direction, from an unexpected source: the former director of the internal security service, Shin Bet. Raised on a kibbutz by parents who had fled the Holocaust, Ami Ayalon's life...

At the start of the 20th century the Ottoman Navy was a shadow of its former might, a reflection of the empire as a whole - the "Sick Man of Europe". Years of defeat, nepotism, and neglect had left the Ottoman Navy with a mix of obsolete vessels, whilst...

Palaeolithic societies have been a neglected topic in the discussion of human origins. In this book, which succeeds and replaces The Palaeolithic Settlement of Europe, published by Cambridge University Press in 1986, Clive Gamble challenges the...

The basic contention of this study is that the colonial rule had far more serious consequence than it has been realized. It radically transformed the nature of the Islamic societies of Egypt and Muslim India to that of an 'Islamicate'societies. This...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781623717582Author Harry AdesFormat PaperbackPage Count 352Imprint Interlink BooksPublisher Interlink Publishing Group, Inc

A poignant testament to the city shattered by Syria's civil war. Aleppo lies in ruins, a casualty of Syria's brutal civil war. Its streets are cloaked in darkness, its population scattered, its memories ravaged. But this was once a vibrant world city,...

Sonallah Ibrahim's 2000 masterpiece offers readers a view of twentieth-century world events through the diary pages of his titular character 1950s Cairo: the intersection of conflicting dreams and political destinies. In this classic novel translated...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780976281405Author Judy Kay KingFormat PaperbackPage Count 412Imprint Envision Editions, Ltd.Publisher Envision Editions, Ltd.Weight(grams)...

In 1981 a young semi-professional footballer - known as `Imam Beckenbauer' for his piety and his dominant style of play - has his career cut short after a confrontation with Turkey's military junta. His name was Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and three decades...

The first comprehensive history of the Turkish economyThe population and economy of the area within the present-day borders of Turkey has consistently been among the largest in the developing world, yet there has been no authoritative economic history of...

This book tells the story of the Doenme, the descendents of Jews who resided in the Ottoman Empire and converted to Islam along with their messiah, Rabbi Shabbatai Tzevi, in the seventeenth century. For two centuries following their conversion, the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781583226513Author Tanya ReinhartFormat PaperbackPage Count 288Imprint Seven Stories Press,U.S.Publisher Seven Stories Press,U.S.Weight(grams) 299g

Since the Islamic resurgence began to make news, the Islamic idea of holy war, or "jihad", has been the subject of tremendous media attention - much of it sensationalistic. This study attempts to discover where and when the idea of jihad...

A complete history of Islamic political thought from early Islam (c.622-661) to the present. This comprehensive overview describes and interprets all schools of Islamic political thought, their origins, inter-connections and meaning. It examines the...

From Timur's tent in Samarqand to Shah 'Abbas's palace in Isfahan and Humayun's tomb in Delhi, the pavilion has been an integral part of Persianate gardens since its earliest appearance at the Achaemenid garden in Pasargadae in the sixth century BC...

"Year of the Locust" captures in page-turning detail the end of the Ottoman world and a pivotal moment in Palestinian history. In the diaries of Ihsan Hasan al-Turjman (1893-1917), the first ordinary recruit to describe World War I from the Arab side, we...