History Middle

In the year 999, when Ben Attar, a Moroccan Jewish merchant, takes a second wife, he commits an act whose unforeseen consequences will forever alter his family, his relationships, his business-his life. In an attempt to forestall conflict and advance his business interests at the same time, Ben...

The Arab Spring promised to end dictatorship and bring self-government to people across the Middle East. Yet everywhere except Tunisia it led to either renewed dictatorship, civil war, extremist terror, or all three. In The Arab Winter, Noah Feldman argues that the Arab Spring was nevertheless not an unmitigated failure, much less an inevitable one. Rather, it was a noble, tragic series of events in which, for the first time in recent Middle Eastern history, Arabic-speaking peoples took free, collective political action as they sought to achieve self-determination.

In this classic of social history, the author describes the lives of six obscure men and women of the Middle Ages. She draws on account books, records, letters, diaries, and wills to make the life of those times as concrete and comprehensible as our own.

Against enormous odds and in the face of fierce pushback, the Palestine solidarity movement has succeeded in transforming the landscape of American politics. In this book, two key leaders and former staff of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) focus on the important role of anti-Zionist Jewish organizing within the broader Palestine solidarity movement, reflecting on their decade of leadership of JVP and drawing lessons especially relevant to those organizing from a position of solidarity.

Palestine: A Socialist Introduction systematically tackles a number of important aspects of the Palestinian struggle for liberation, contextualizing it in an increasingly polarized world and offering a socialist perspective on how full liberation can be won.

Today, most Westerners still see the war in Afghanistan as a contest between democracy and Islamist fanaticism. That war is real, but it sits atop an older struggle between Kabul and the countryside, between order and chaos, between a modernist impulse to join the world and the pull of an older Afghanistan - a tribal universe of village republics permeated by Islam. Now, Tamim Ansary draws on his Afghan background, Muslim roots, and Western and Afghan sources to explain history from the inside out and to illuminate the long, internal struggle that the outside world has never fully understood.

The definitive account of how regime change in the Middle East has proven so tempting to American policymakers for decades—despite never achieving the far-reaching aims of its proponents—and how it’s finally time to forge a new path forward. Since the end of World War II, the United States...

Despite losing the 1948 War, Arab nations throughout the Middle East had still refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist. After the Suez Crisis, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser envisioned creating a unified Arab world, commonly referred to as pan-Arabism. Nasser was the consummate pan-Arab leader in the 1960s, positioning himself as the leader of the Arab world through increasing incitement against Israel with rhetoric. Israel found itself in possession of more land after 1948 than envisioned by the U.N. Partition Plan.

Best-selling author Robert Lacey tells us what happened in the Middle East's oil-rich powerhouse---while we weren't looking.

The drama that shaped today’s Iran, from the Revolution to the present day. In 1979, seemingly overnight—moving at a clip some thirty years faster than the rest of the world—Iran became the first revolutionary theocracy in modern times. Since then, the country has been largely a black box...

While the bow was used throughout ancient times and the Middle Ages, on mainland Europe it was mostly replaced by the crossbow in the early 13th century. But that would change with the introduction of the longbow; a more powerful weapon than the traditional hunting bows. The original longbowmen were Welshmen recruited by King Edward I of England after he conquered Wales, and the weapon got its name from the fact that it was almost as tall as the man using it. This gave it a longer draw and therefore more force as longbows were generally made of yew, a strong and pliable wood.

A riveting memoir of the first Israeli-born Jewish American to be sent as a Peace Corps volunteer to a closed Arab society. A good memoir is a survivor's tale - the story of a person who has faced obstacles and made it through well enough to tell it. Dalya Cohen-Mor, a Sabra-born American woman, volunteered to serve in the Peace Corps, went through a lengthy and highly competitive application process, was accepted, and was sent to serve in the predominantly Palestinian country of Jordan.

In September 1984, Lisa Paul, an American college student and nanny living in Moscow, entered Inna Meiman’s house for her first Russian language lesson. And so began a two–year friendship and a fight for Inna’s life. In Swimming in the Daylight, Lisa chronicles her friend’s struggle to shed her refusenik status, obtain a visa to America, and find medical treatment for her malignant cancer. Inna endured a perverse reality as a citizen of the Soviet Union....

Acclaimed travel writer Rick Antonson sets his adventurous compass on Mount Ararat, exploring the region's long history, religious mysteries, and complex politics. Mount Ararat is the most fabled mountain in the world. For millennia, this massif in eastern Turkey has been rumored as the resting place of Noah's Ark following the Great Flood. But it also plays a significant role in the longstanding conflict between Turkey and Armenia.

استَحقَّ «أحمد بن طولون»، مؤسِّس الدولة الطولونية في مصر، أن تُخلَّد سيرتُه في ذاكرة التاريخ، فلا نَزالُ نَذكُره حتى الآن بمسجده الشهير الذي يتَّسم بروعة البناء المعماري الفريد، باقيًا على حالتِه الأصلية، شاهِدًا على عظَمةِ دولته ومَبلغِ حضارتها التي ملأَت أصداؤها الآفاق. إنه «أحمد بن طولون» الذي نجح بجدارته وقُدرته الحربية أن ينقلَ مصر (بعد أن أُسنِدَت إليه ولايتُها) من ولايةٍ تابعة للخلافة العباسية، إلى دولةٍ مستقلة تَنعَم بالاستقلال في شتَّى مَناحي الحياة، ظلَّ يحكُمها هو وخلفاؤه لسنواتٍ عديدة.

يتناول تاريخ الثورة الفلسطينية التي اندلعت بين عامي 1936 و1939، وهي مرحلة هامة في مقاومة الانتداب البريطاني والحركة الصهيونية. يركز الكتاب على تطور الأحداث منذ الإضراب العام عام 1936، مروراً بالانتفاضة الشعبية، وصولًا إلى قمع الثورة من قبل القوات البريطانية. ويستعرض الكتاب تماسك الشعب الفلسطيني، على الرغم من عدم تحقيق الهدف النهائي بالتحرير، إلا أن الثورة كانت خطوة مهمة نحو ترسيخ الروح الثورية في نفوس الفلسطينيين.

مروج الذهب ومعادن الجوهر كتاب في التاريخ للمسعودي، يبدأ بالخليقة وينتهي بعهد الخليفة العباسي المطيع لله.

مسلسل (الأيام الكبرى) في جزئه الثاني وملاحم أخرى للعرب في 3 قصص أساسية تشرح بشكل ضمني العديد من ملامح تاريخ الجزيرة.

مروج الذهب ومعادن الجوهر كتاب في التاريخ للمسعودي، يبدأ بالخليقة وينتهي بعهد الخليفة العباسي المطيع لله.

Justice for Some offers a new approach to understanding the Palestinian struggle for freedom, told through the power and control of international law. Focusing on key junctures—from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to present-day wars in Gaza—Noura Erakat shows how the strategic deployment of law has shaped current conditions. Over the past century, the law has done more to advance Israel's interests than the Palestinians'. But, Erakat argues, this outcome was never inevitable.