Ballots Bullets and Kabulshit - An Afghan Election by Toby Ralph

$7.00 NZD

Category: Middle East | Series: Penguin Specials | Reading Level: very good

Toby Ralph, described as one of the 'most powerful spinners and advisers in Australia', joined a UN team to assist with preparations for Afghanistan's 2009 presidential elections. Ballots, Bullets and Kabulshit offers a rare glimpse into the chaos and danger of attempting to deliver democracy in a war z one. With the wry humour of a seasoned politico (or someone trying to distract themselves from the very real dangers of their situation), Ralph provides snapshots of life in Kabul, a primer in the political shambles of a failing state, and the reflections of a non-combatant working in a war zone in a suit and tie. He is whisked between meetings in armoured cars, tries to avoid sitting on the AK-47 down the back of the couch at his lodgings, dines with colleagues in sandbagged candlelit restaurants, and attempts to convince the Electoral Commission chairman - and friend of President Hamid Karzai - that having an election is a good idea. That the poll ended in farce, with Karzai's reinstatement by default, means the UN will be sending another group of advisors when next an election is reluctantly called. ...Show more

Inside the Kingdom by Robert Lacey

$12.00 NZD

Category: Middle East | Reading Level: very good

Saudi Arabia is a country defined by paradox: it sits atop some of the richest oil deposits in the world, and yet the country's roiling disaffection produced sixteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. It is a modern state, driven by contemporary technology, and yet its powerful religious establishment woul d have its customs and practices rolled back to match those of the Prophet Muhammed over a thousand years ago. In a world where events in the Middle East continue to have geopolitical consequences far beyond the region's boundaries, an understanding of this complex nation is essential. With "Inside the Kingdom", British journalist and bestselling author Robert Lacey has given us one of the most penetrating and insightful looks at Saudi Arabia ever produced. More than twenty years after he first moved to the country to write about the Saudis at the end of the oil boom, Lacey has returned to find out how the consequences of the boom produced a society at war with itself. Filled with stories told by a broad range of Saudis, from high princes and ambassadors to men and women on the street, "Inside the Kingdom" is in many ways the story of the Saudis in their own words. ...Show more

A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah's Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel by Thanassis Cambanis

$10.00 NZD

Category: Middle East | Reading Level: very good

The Rock - A Tale of Seventh-Century Jerusalem by Kanan Makiya

$16.00 NZD

Category: Middle East | Reading Level: very good

Dreams and Shadows - The Future of the Middle East by Robin Wright

$20.00 NZD

Category: Middle East | Reading Level: very good

A magnificent reckoning with the extraordinary changes engulfing the Middle East, by one of our greatest reporters on the region. Robin Wright first landed in the Middle East on October 6, 1973, the day the fourth Middle East war erupted. She has covered every country and most major crises in the region since then, through to the rise of al Qaeda and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. For all the drama of the past, however, the region's most decisive traumas are unfolding today as the Middle East struggles to deal with trends that have already reshaped the rest of the world. And for all the darkness, there is also hope. Some of the emerging trends give cause for greater optimism about the future of the Middle East than at any time since the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. "Dreams and Shadows" is an extraordinary tour de horizon of the new Middle East, with on-the-ground reportage of the ideas and movements driving change across the region-and the obstacles they confront. Through the powerful storytelling for which the author is famous, "Dreams and Shadows" ties together the players and events in Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey, the Gulf states, and the Palestinian territories into a coherent vision of what lies ahead. A marvelous field report from the center of the storm, the book is animated by the characters whose stories give the region's transformation its human immediacy and urgency. It is also rich with the history that brought us to this point. It is a masterpiece of the reporter's art and a work of profound and enduring insight. At the end, Wright offers perspective on the United States' most ambitious and costly foreign policy initiative since the rebuilding ofEurope after World War II. The stakes are far greater than winning the war on terrorism, stabilizing Iraq, or achieving a lasting Arab-Israeli peace. Transforming the greater Middle East is the last great political challenge of the modern era. Yet the early burst of activity in a region long stagnant is already becoming one of the first grand surprises of the twenty-first century. ...Show more

Israel: - A History by Anita Shapira; Anthony Berris (translator)

$20.00 NZD

Category: Middle East | Reading Level: very good

Written by one of Israel's most notable scholars, this volume provides a breathtaking history of Israel from the origins of the Zionist movement in the late 19th century to the present day. Anita Shapira's gripping narrative explores the emergence of Zionism in Europe against the backdrop of relations a mong Jews, Arabs and Turks, and the earliest pioneer settlements in Palestine under Ottoman rule. Weaving together political, social and cultural developments in Palestine under the British mandate, Shapira creates a tapestry through which to understand the challenges of Israeli nation-building, including mass immigration, shifting cultural norms, the politics of war and world diplomacy, and the creation of democratic institutions and a civil society. References to contemporary diaries, memoirs and literature bring a human dimension to the story of Israel, from its declaration of independence in 1948 through successive decades of waging war, negotiating peace, and building a modern state with a vibrant society and culture. Based on archival sources and the most up-to-date scholarly research, this authoritative history is a must-read for anyone with a passionate interest in Israel and the Middle East. ISRAEL: A HISTORY will be the gold standard in the field for years to come. ...Show more

The Empty Quarter being a description of the great South Desert of Arabia known as Rub' al Khali by H St J B Philby

$350.00 NZD

Category: Travel | Reading Level: very good

The Great Arab Conquests by John Bagot Glubb

$15.00 NZD

Category: Middle East | Reading Level: good-very good

Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society: Updated with a New Preface by Lila Abu-Lughod

$16.00 NZD

Category: Middle East | Reading Level: very good

This updated edition is presented with a new Preface. Lila Abu-Lughod lived with a community of Bedouins in the Western Desert of Egypt for nearly two years, studying gender relations and the oral lyric poetry through which women and young men express personal feelings. The poems are haunting, the evoca tion of emotional life vivid. But her analysis also reveals how deeply implicated poetry and sentiment are in the play of power and the maintenance of a system of social hierarchy. What begins as a puzzle about a single poetic genre becomes a reflection on the politics of sentiment and the relationship between ideology and human experience. ...Show more

Imperial Life In The Emerald City - Inside Baghdad's s Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

$10.00 NZD

Category: Military | Reading Level: good

An unprecedented account of life in Baghdad's Green Zone . . . the enclave that was the headquarters for the American occupation of Iraq. Imperial Life in the Emerald City is an unprecedented account of life in Baghdad's Green Zone, a walled-off enclave of towering plants, posh villas, and sparkling swi mming pools that was the headquarters for the American occupation of Iraq. The Washington Post's former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran takes us with him into the Zone: into a bubble, cut off from wartime realities, where the task of reconstructing a devastated nation competed with the distractions of a Little America - a half-dozen bars stocked with cold beer, a disco where women showed up in hot pants, a movie theatre that screened shoot-'em-up films, an all-you-could-eat buffet piled high with pork, a shopping mall that sold pornographic movies, a parking lot filled with shiny new SUVs, and a snappy dry-cleaning service - much of it run by Halliburton. Most Iraqis were barred from entering the Emerald City for fear they would blow it up. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and internal documents, Chandrasekaran tells the story of the people and ideas that inhabited the Green Zone during the occupation, from the imperial viceroy L. Paul Bremer III to the fleet of men hired to implement the idea that Americans could build a Jeffersonian democracy in an embattled Middle Eastern country. ...Show more

A World of Trouble : America in the Middle East by Patrick Tyler

$18.00 NZD

Category: America | Reading Level: very good

Presents the history of the national strategies and internal stratagems that governed the American state's involvement in the Middle East, from Nixon's Cold War manoeuvring to George W Bush's Axis of Evil.

Farewell Kabul: From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World by Christina Lamb

$12.00 NZD

Category: Military | Reading Level: very good

From the award-winning co-author of 'I Am Malala', this book asks just how the might of NATO, with 48 countries and 140,000 troops on the ground, failed to defeat a group of religious students and farmers? How did it go so wrong? 'Farewell Kabul' tells how the West turned success into defeat in the long est war fought by the United States in its history and by Britain since the Hundred Years War. It is the story of well-intentioned men and women going into a place they did not understand at all. And how, what had once been the right thing to do had become a conflict that everyone wanted to exit. It has been a fiasco which has left Afghanistan still one of the poorest and most dangerous nations on earth. The leading journalist on the region with unparalleled access to all key decision makers, Christina Lamb is the best-selling author of 'The Africa House' and 'I Am Malala', co-authored with Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. This revelatory and personal account is her final analysis of the realities of Afghanistan, told unlike anyone before. ...Show more