Middle East War

Here's a remarkable, true story of love and war, of journalist Micah Garenheld hostage in Iraq, and the determined young woman, Marie-Helene Carleton, who fought and won his release.

The history of Jerusalem is one of conflict, faith, and empire. Few cities have been attacked as often and as savagely. This was no less true in the Middle Ages. From the Persian sack in 614 through the bloody First Crusade and beyond, Jerusalem changed hands countless times. But despite these horrific acts of violence, its story during this period is also one of interfaith tolerance and accord. In this gripping history, John D. Hosler explores the great clashes and delicate settlements of medieval Jerusalem.

Making War at Fort Hood offers an illuminating look at war through the daily lives of the people whose job it is to produce it. Kenneth MacLeish conducted a year of intensive fieldwork among soldiers and their families at and around the US Army's Fort Hood in central Texas. He shows how war's reach extends far beyond the battlefield into military communities where violence is as routine, boring, and normal as it is shocking and traumatic.

An award-winning military journalist tells the amazing stories of 22 soldiers who've won the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award.

Far from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States and al-Qaeda are fighting a clandestine war of drones and suicide bombers in an unforgiving corner of Arabia. The Last Refuge charts the rise, fall, and resurrection of al-Qaeda in Yemen over the last 30 years, detailing how a group that the United States once defeated has now become one of the world’s most dangerous threats. An expert on Yemen who has spent years on the ground there, Gregory D. Johnsen uses al-Qaeda’s Arabic battle notes to reconstruct their world as they take aim at the United States and its allies.

From 1951 to 1967 Egypt pursued a secret program to build military rockets that could have conceivably posed a threat to neighboring Israel. Because such an ambitious project required Western expertise, the Egyptian leader President Nasser hired West German scientists, many of them veterans of the Nazi rocket program at Peenemünde and elsewhere. These covert plans soon came to the attention of Israel’s legendary secret service, Mossad, and caused deep alarm in Tel Aviv.

Determined to offer an unfiltered version of events, the Washington Post's Anthony Shadid was neither embedded with soldiers nor briefed by politicians. Because he is fluent in Arabic, Shadid, an Arab-American born and raised in Oklahoma, was able to actually disappear into the divided, dangerous worlds of Iraq. Day by day, as American dreams clashed with Arab notions of justice, he pieced together the human story of ordinary Iraqis weathering the terrible dislocations and tragedies of war.

The role of social media in the events of the Arab Spring and its aftermath in the Muslim world has stimulated much debate, yet little in the way of useful insight. Now Haroon Ullah, a scholar and diplomat with deep knowledge of politics and societies in the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, draws the first clear picture of the unprecedented impact of Twitter, Facebook, and other means of online communication on the recent revolutions that blazed across Muslim nations.

After September 11, Americans agonized over why 19 men hated the United States enough to kill 3,000 civilians in an unprovoked assault. Analysts have offered a wide variety of explanations for the attack, but the one voice missing is that of the terrorists themselves. This penetrating book is the first to present the inner logic of al-Qaeda, and like-minded extremist groups, by which they justify September 11 and other terrorist attacks.

As a National Public Radio reporter covering the last stand of the Taliban in Afghanistan's southern borderland, Sarah Chayes became deeply immersed in the attempt to rebuild a broken nation. With her NPR assignment finished in early 2002, she left reporting to help turn around the country's fortunes, accepting a job running a nonprofit founded by President Hamid Karzai's brother. With remarkable access to leading players in the postwar government, Chayes witnessed a tragic, perverse turn of events.

Der Angriff der Hamas vom 7. Oktober 2023 markiert einen tiefen Einschnitt in der Geschichte Israels. Joseph Croitoru erklärt konzise, wie die Hamas seit 2007 ihre islamistische Herrschaft im Gazastreifen etabliert hat und welche Organisationen und Staaten ihren Terror gegen Israel unterstützen. Sein Augen öffnendes Buch, das auf langjähriger Beobachtung der Hamas basiert, lässt den neuen, schrecklichen Krieg in Israel und Palästina besser verstehen.

In What Wars Leave Behind, J. Malcolm Garcia reveals the people and pain behind the statistics. He writes about impoverished families scraping by in Cairo’s city of the dead, ordinary Syrians pretending all is well as shells explode around them, and others caught in conflicts that rage long after the cameramen have packed up and gone away.

The Ottoman Empire: The Untold Story to its Rise and Fall Plus the Revolutionary War: The Making of America (2 Books in 1) brings that history and the life-changing accounts to life. This two-book bundle takes a deep dive into the everyday lives of colonists, explores the upheaval and rebellions that shaped the lives of those who were there and for generations to come, the stronghold the Ottoman Empire had on the world, the origins of its storied population and how they came to power, the contributions they made, and more.

Across Cultures and Empires is above all an immigrant's story. Mahir Ibrahimov's fluency in multiple languages offers the perspective of someone who found a way to successfully cross boundaries amid the fall of empire and the resulting cascade of conflicts, even as he provides the listener with insight into an era where mass migration has become a defining dynamic. In the course of telling his personal story and reflecting upon his experiences, Ibrahimov offers clear observations on the deep connections he has made about freedom and America's role in the world.

The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon left us stunned, angry, and uncomprehending. As it became clear that these horrifying acts had been committed in the name of religion, the media, the government, and ordinary citizens alike sought answers to questions about Islam and its adherents.

This riveting and important book is the summation of more than 20 years covering Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The War Against Saddam offers, in five acts, the full story of his rise to power and the West's relationship with Saddam throughout his dictatorship.

He is trained and ready for war. Instead of leading the Marines into combat, a Marine captain is given the mission of advising an Iraqi army battalion in one of the most violent cities in Iraq. The collected stories span seven months of nearly constant combat in 2006 and 2007, at the height of the insurgency in Iraq. This audiobook is the raw, visceral story of a combat adviser with a lot more combat than advising.

This book is written by two of the leading terrorist experts in the world. Hacking ISIS will explain in graphic detail how ISIS produces religious cultism, recruits vulnerable young people of all religions and nationalities and disseminates their brutal social media to the world. More, the book will map out the cyberspace-level tactics on how ISIS spreads its terrifying content, how it distributes tens of thousands of pieces of propaganda daily and is winning the battle in cyberspace and how to stop it in its tracks.

David Headley, the American Pakistani also known as Daood Gilani, lived a double life. One day he would stroll through Central Park in his tailored Armani suit as a true New Yorker, and the next he would browse in the bazaar in Lahore wearing traditional Pakistani clothes. One day he would drink champagne at the most extravagant clubs; on another he would prostrate himself in prayer in remote Pakistan and pledge fidelity to Allah.

What are the possibilities—and hazards—facing America as it withdraws from Afghanistan and reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? Where is the Taliban now in both of these countries? What does the immediate future hold, and what are America’s choices going forward? These are some of the crucial questions that Ahmed Rashid—Pakistan’s preeminent journalist—takes on in this follow-up to his acclaimed Descent into Chaos.