Books For Understanding Old and New Worlds
GERMS:
Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, by Judith Miller,
Stephen Engelberg and William Broad (Simon and Schuster, 2001)
Three reporters from the New York Times, one on international affairs,
one on national security, and one on science have collaborated on this
new book have written a frightening account about why germs will be the
weapons of choice in warfare in the 21st century.
Hardcover
List Price $27.00
BOMBS,
BUGS, DRUGS AND THUGS: Intelligence and America's Quest for Security,
by Loch Johnson (New York University Press, 2000)
Johnson, an academic who has had wide experience overseer of intelligence
in government, writes about the lack of coordination and communication
between the thirteen secret agencies that conduct terrorism surveillance.
Hardcover
List Price $26.95
TERROR
IN THE MIND OF GOD: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, by
Mark Juergensmeyer (University of California, 2001),
Juergensmeyer, the Director of Global and International Studies at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, has written extensively about
religious nationalism. He argues that violence is fundamental to the structures
of all religions and explains how terrorists find moral justification
for their acts in their faith.
Trade
Paper
List Price $16.95
AMERICA'S
ACHILLES HEEL: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and
Covert Attack, by Richard Falkenrath, Robert Newman, and Bradley
Thayer (MIT, 2000)
The authors, two who are affiliated with the Belfer Center for Science
and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and
one who is an arms control specialist, examine the various prospects of
domestic terrorism and policy options for combating it without compromising
our civil liberties.
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Paper
List Price $24.95
THE
ULTIMATE TERRORISTS, by Jessica Stern (Harvard, 2000)
Stern, the former head of the National Security Council's Interagency
group, points our that whereas WMD, weapons of mass destruction, have
previously been used as a means to promote political ends, they have now
become ends in themselves with religious justification.
Trade
Paper
List Price $14.95
THE NEW JACKALS: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism
by Simon Reeve (Northeastern University Press, 1999)
Reeve, a British journalist, describes the activities of two of the world's
most notorious terrorists. As Reeves describes it in 1999, Ramzi Yousef,
had been seeking to topple the twin towers of the World Trade Center and
causing thousands of fatalities in the process, a plan that was first
implemented in the 1993 bombing of the Center.
Hardcover
List Price $26.95
BIN
LADEN: The Man Who Declared War on America, by Yossef Bodansky
(Prima, 2001)
Bodanfsky, the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and
Unconventional Warfare, traces the events in bin Laden's life that turned
him away from an affluent, cosmopolitan lifestyle in Saudi Arabia to a
militant, austere Islamic fundamentalist leading an international terrorist
movement. Bodansky assesses bin Laden's greatest accomplishment to be
his impact on Muslim youth worldwide and warns that impact will long survive
bin Laden's death. A large majority of Muslim youth considers Osama their
hero," he writes, a phenomenon which Bodansky believes will lead
to many generations to come of a radicalized and militant jihad.
Hardcover
(Paperback 9/01)
List Price $27.95
Central
Asia and Afghanistan
Section
by Mark LaFramboise
Tournament
of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia
by Karl E. Meyer and Sharon Blair Brysac (Counterpoint)
Engaging,
witty, and provocative, Tournament of Shadows chronicles the tumultuous
history of the highly contested region of Central Asia. The authors survey
their subject with broad historical sweep, profiling the major players
and events that have shaped this arena which has prompted so much of our
focus.
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Paper
List Price $19.00
Taliban:
Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed
Rashid (Yale)
Called
"the only authoritative account of the taliban and modern day Afghanistan
available to English language readers," Taliban tells of its origin
and rise among the Pashtun refugees in Pakistani camps to present day
Afghanistan, home to terrorist groups that threaten the stability of the
world.
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Paper
List Price $14.95
War
at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Tibet
by Eric S. Margolis (Routledge)
Veteran
journalist, Eric S. Margolis, clearly defines the volatile political landscape
of South Central Asia, providing valuable historical insight as well as
first-hand observations of this potentially disastrous flash point in
world events. He describes the governments, opposition forces, and other
players involved in this contentious region.
Trade
Paper
List Price $17.95
An
Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan by Jason Elliot (St.Martin's)
In
1979, 19 year old college student Jason Elliot spent his summer vacation
dodging shells and bullets with the mujaheddin. He returned 10 years later
as the Taliban accomplished its rise to power. Elliot weaves a stunning
meditation on a far away and little understood culture.
Hardcover
List Price $30.00
The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron (Oxford)
Written
in 1933, Robert Byron's eccentric travel diary describes his journey through
the Middle East to the river Amu Darya, the river that forms much of Afghanistan's
northern border. In recent remarks at Politics & Prose, author Simon
Winchester called it perhaps the best book written about the region by
a western journalist.
Trade
Paper
List Price $15.95
The
Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk
(Kodansha)
Full
of suspense and intrigue, The Great Game recounts the conflict between
Victorian England and Tsarist Russia in the late 19th century. Afghanistan,
gateway from Russian Central Asia to the riches of India is a focal point
in this tale of war and espionage.
Paperback
List Price $17.00
American
Foreign Policy: Pro and Con
Section
by Virginia Harabin
Pillar,
Paul R. Terrorism
and U. S. Foreign Policy. Washington: Brookings Institution, 2001
Former Deputy Chief of the Counterterrorist Center at the CIA, Pillar
assesses current terrorist threats, the status of terrorism in world politics,
counterterrorist tools available to the United States, state sponsors
of terrorism, and offers his views of how best to educate the public about
terrorist threats and counterterrorism.
Hardcover
List Price $26.95
Lake,
Anthony. Six
Nightmares: Real Threats in a Dangerous World and How America Can Meet
Them. Boston: Little Brown, 2000.
Former national security advisor Anthony Lake examines six very real scenarios,
from high-tech terrorism at home to political instability abroad, and
lays out his recommendations for what steps the United States can take
to avoid them.
Hardcover
List Price $27.95
Heymann,
Philip B. Terrorism
and AmericaA Commonsense Strategy for a Democratic Society. Cambridge:
The MIT Press.
The former Deputy Attorney General of the United States and current James
Barr Ames Professor of Law at Harvard Law School argues that the U.S.
and other democracies can fight terrorism while preserving liberty and
maintaining a healthy, unified society.
Trade Paper
List Price $13.95
Bamford,
James. Body
of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency.
New York: Doubleday, 2001. $29.95.
Investigative journalist James Bamford penetrates the wall of silence
surrounding the NSA, the most secretive and powerful intelligence agency
in the world which dwarfs even the CIA in budget, manpower, and influence.
Hardcover
List Price $29.95
Chomsky,
Noam. Rogue
States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs. Cambridge: South End
Press, 2000.
Linguist, philosopher and political analyst, Noam Chomsky articulates
his opposition to abuse of power by the world' superpowers and argues
that the United States and its allies should be held responsible for the
acts they commit in the name of their people.
Trade
Paper
List Price $16.00
Johnson,
Chalmers. Blowback:
The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. (Paperback details)
2000. Holt
"Blowback" is a term invented by the CIA which refers to the
unintended consequences of American politics, and in this book Johnson
warns of the dangerous harvest that results from the global resentments
the United States has sown.
Trade
Paper
List Price $15.00
Also
of Interest: Arnove, Anthony, ed. Iraq
Under Seige: The Deadly Impact of and Sanctions War. Cambridge:
South End Press, 2000. $16.00
In this moving collection, leading voices against the sanctions, including
Howard Zinn, Robert Fisk and Phyllis Bennis, document the human, environmental,
and social toll of the United -States led war against Iraq which has devastated
the lives of civilians while leaving the regime of Sadaam Hussein in place.
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Paper
List Price $16.00
Israel and the Arabs
A
Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin (Holt, $20) will provide
the historically-interested reader with a marvelous detailed view of the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the so-called British mandate that
set in motion much that happened throughout the 20th century
in the Middle East.
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Paper
List Price $20.00
One
Palestine Complete by Tom Segev (Holt, $18) presents an Israeli
view of the mandate period (1922-48). "The British had found an undeveloped
country when they arrive and they left behind much progress, especially
among the Jews. But they also left behind much backwardness, especially
among the Arabs."
Trade
Paper
List Price $18.00
The
best book describing the full history of Zionist-Arab conflict is Benny
Morris’ Righteous
Victims (1999, Vintage, $18). This fair-minded examination
sees Zionism in the early 20th century as a colonizing and
expansionist ideology and movement. By comparison, the Palestinian Arabs
"with their fragmented, venal political elite, failed to put together
effective national institutions that could have guided them toward statehood."
After Israel declared statehood, the Arabs always talked in terms of elimination
of the state, never accommodation. Benny Morris, professor of history
at Ben Gurion University in Israel, does not mince words as he freely
distributes responsibility for the century of discord between Arabs and
Jews.
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Paper
List Price $18.00
Drinking
the Sea at Gaza by Amira Hass (Holt, $16), originally written
in 1996, is a impassioned plea for justice for the one million inhabitants
of Gaza by a reporter for Ha’aretz. "The blocs of Jewish settlements
and the patchwork of new roads are in effect the nails in the coffin of
a contiguous Palestinian state."
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Paper
List Price $16.00
The People and Politics of the Middle East
The
Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power (Simon and
Schuster, $22) by Daniel Yergin is now almost nine years old, but the
politics of the Middle East is still about oil. As he did in the aftermath
of the Gulf War, Yergin will offer a history and perspective to the importance
of the oil-rich Middle East to the rest of the world.
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Paper
List Price $22.00
A
History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani (Warner Books,
$16.99) originally published by Harvard ten years ago. This book offers
readers the best history of the Arab world including: language,
culture, religion as well as the economic and political developments that
gave rise to the existing nations.
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Paper
List Price $16.99
The
Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2000 Years (1995,
Simon & Schuster, $16) is compact history of the region from the Roman
Empire to the present by one of the preeminent Western scholars, Bernard
Lewis. Readers will find the earlier history, through the Ottoman Empire
provide a rich and diversified background to the events of the 20th
century.
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Paper
List Price $16.00
Covering
Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of
the World (Vintage, $13) Edward Said’s succinct book, written
originally in 1981, with a new introduction in 1997, is important to read
as background for what has been and is being reported in the media. Said
particularly attacks Bernard Lewis and Judith Miller as representatives
of a viewpoint which "perpetuate hostility and ignorance" of
Islam to Westerners.
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Paper
List Price $13.00
The
Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran
(2000, Vintage, $14) is the result of Robin Wright’s almost 30 years of
covering the Middle East as a reporter. Iran is pivotal geographically
and for its resources. Because of her deep involvement Wright is able
to see Iran as it was before, during, and now after the change from kingdom
to Islamic republic to a new accommodation with modernity.
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Paper
List Price $14.00
Dream
Palace of the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey
by Fouad Ajami (Vintage,$14). For Ajami, who teaches at Johns Hopkins
University, this is both a personal history and a history of his generation
of Arab intellectuals, their hopes and their delusions.
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Paper
List Price $14.00
Islam
Section
by Daniel Tepfer
Understanding
Islam by Thomas W. Lippman (DuttonPlume, $12.95) is a thorough
history of Islam and its adherents from a geopolitical perspective.
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Paper
List Price $12.95
The
Everyman’s Library Edition of The
Koran (Tuttle Publishing, $5.50) is the teachings of the prophet
Muhammed, the central text of Islam, in a readable English version as
translated by J. M. Rodwell.
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Paper
List Price $5.50
The
wide range of contemporary Islam as practiced in various Eastern &
Western societies is surveyed in Islam
Today by Akbar S. Ahmed (I.B. Taurus & Company Ltd., $19.95)
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Paper
List Price $19.95
.
Islam:
A Very Short Introduction by Malise Ruthven (Oxford University
Press, $8.95) is a brief but comprehensive introduction to the theology
of Islam and its major movements.
Trade
Paper
List Price $8.95
Muhammad:
A Biography of the Prophet by Karen Armstrong (HarperCollins,
$15.00)
is a life of the founder & prophet of Islam by one of the most accessible
authors ever to treat the subject of religion.
Trade
Paper
List Price $15.00
Islam:
A Short History by Karen Armstrong (Modern Library, $19.95) Karen
Armstrong’s digestible overview of the sweeping history of Islam
serves as an adequate if abbreviated post-script to her biography of the
prophet.
Hardcover
List Price $19.95
