A field report by a renowned regional specialist documents the major crises that have overshadowed the Middle East throughout the past thirty years, offering insight into the decisive events that are reshaping the region.

"In a thrilling dramatic narrative, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Joby Warrick traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents. When the government of Jordan granted amnesty to a group of political prisoners in 1999, it little realized that among them was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist mastermind and soon the architect of an Islamist movement...

Robert Fisk picks up reporting on the Middle East where his book "The great war for civilization" left off, starting with the aftermath of the Iraq invasion in 2005. From the Arab uprisings and the Syrian civil war to Israel's wars against Palestine and Lebanon, he condemns the West's ongoing hypocrisy and interference while exposing the horrific realities of life on the ground. Using a combination of journalism, historical analysis, and eyewitness...

This memoir of fourteen months as America's proconsul in Iraq is the only senior insider's perspective on the crucial period following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. Bremer describes negotiations with emerging Iraqi leaders as they struggle to forge the democratic institutions vital to Iraq's future; his resistance to the cut-and-run policy that would have quickly delivered governance of Iraq to a handful of unrepresentative anti-Saddam...

Surveys the changes occurring in the Middle East as a result of a new generation of Arabs who reject political and social tradition, assessing the toppling of governments while considering regional prospects for democracy and how the Western world shouldrespond.

"From the founding of Islam in the seventh century, there had always been a dominant Muslim empire, or "caliphate." But in 1924, the Ottoman Caliphate was formally abolished. Since then, there has been an ongoing struggle to establish a legitimate political order in the Middle East. At the center of that struggle is the vexing problem of religion and its role in political life. In Islamic Exceptionalism, Brookings Institution scholar and acclaimed...

Covers the struggle that erupted in Syria in early 2011, discussing the key players, the underlying causes, and the continuing human toll of the violence.

"The ... blogger and Middle East expert Juan Cole illuminates the role of today's Arab youth--who they are, what they want, and how they will affect world politics"--