Middle World

A moving and inspiring memoir by Afghanistan's youngest female mayor and campaigner for human rights. I am one of the lucky ones. I got out of Afghanistan alive when the Taliban retook the country. Millions of others did not - they are now living under one of the world's most repressive regimes...

Whose Middle Ages? is an interdisciplinary collection of short, accessible essays intended for the nonspecialist listener and ideal for teaching at an undergraduate level. Each of 22 essays takes up an area where digging for meaning in the medieval past has brought something distorted back into the present: in our popular entertainment; in our news, our politics, and our propaganda; and in subtler ways that inform how we think about our histories, our countries, and ourselves. Each author looks to a history that has refused to remain past and uses the tools of the academy to read and re-read familiar stories, objects, symbols, and myths.

In this delightfully imaginative novel, once again, hell threatens to break loose as Samuel Johnson and his ragtag group of friends must defend their town from shadowy forces more threatening than ever before... In this clever and quirky follow-up to The Gates and The Infernals, Samuel Johnson's...

A Mouth Full of Salt uncovers a country on the brink of seismic change as its women decide for themselves which traditions are fit for purpose–and which prophecies it's time to rewrite.

The author of The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS and The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran returns with the sharp wit and boundless courage needed to expose the oncoming storm from Iran.

A Short History of the Middle Ages describes the tumultuous era that bridged antiquity and the modern world. Renowned 19th-century French historian and statesman Victor Duruy originally crafted a sweeping, multi-volume chronicle of this pivotal period, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the dawn of the Renaissance.

For over a quarter century, Iran has been one of America's chief nemeses. Ever since Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah in 1979, the relationship between the two nations has been antagonistic: revolutionary guards chanting against the Great Satan, Bush fulminating against the Axis of Evil, Iranian support for Hezbollah, and President Ahmadinejad blaming the U.S. for the world's ills.

Why do Muslim-majority countries exhibit high levels of authoritarianism and low levels of socioeconomic development in comparison to world averages? Ahmet T. Kuru criticizes explanations that point to Islam as the cause of this disparity, because Muslims were philosophically and socioeconomically more developed than Western Europeans between the 9th and 12th centuries. Nor was Western colonialism the cause: Muslims had already suffered political and socioeconomic problems when colonization began.

Naguib El-Samadouni has a significant advantage: he's boring. Boring people are everywhere around us; finding one is as easy as looking in the bathroom mirror or opening the window and looking out at the street. But Naguib is boring to an exciting degree... to a fascinating, ever-renewing degree.

When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, in December 2010, sparking a wave of popular uprisings that would topple dictatorial regimes across North Africa and the Middle East, observers hailed the onset of a great “Arab Awakening.” But this wasn’t the first time people in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere across the region had taken to the streets demanding fundamental change.

The Akkadian Empire was one of the first empires in human history and certainly the first to involve the central government of a large, multi-ethnic populace. It also introduced things like the very first postal system and facilitated advances in science, art, and medicine. The heart of the empire, the city of Akkad, became the most important trading center in the ancient world and one of the largest cities in the world. Then, in a relatively short time, the empire disintegrated, and the city itself was abandoned.

In Going Home, Raja Shehadeh, the Orwell Prize-winning author of Palestinian Walks, takes us on a series of journeys around his hometown of Ramallah. Set in a single day - the day that happens to be the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank - the audiobook is a powerful and moving record and chronicle of the changing face of his city.

Lara Marlowe first met Robert Fisk in 1983, in Damascus. He was already a famous war correspondent; she was a young American reporter who would soon become a renowned journalist in her own right. This is at once a portrait of a remarkable man by a woman who loved him, the story of a Middle East broken by its own divisions and outside powers and a moving account of a relationship in dark times.

الطفيل: كائن يعيش ويتغذى على كائن آخر، ولا يساعده على الحياة .. أو هو الشخص الذي يستغل كرم الآخرين ولا يقدم لهم شيئا بالمقابل. في العربية الطفيلي هو: الشخص الذي يدعو نفسه لكل مأدبة، وفي الإغريقية بارازيتوس (Parasitos) وهو: ضيف العشاء المحترف الذي لا يقدم شيئاً سوى تسلية الأغنياء.

وداعاً أيها الغريب .. كانت إقامتك قصيرة، لكنها كانت رائعة .. عسى أن تجد جنتك التى فتشت عنها كثيراً .. وداعاً أيها الغريب .. كانت زيارتك رقصة من رقصات الظل .. قطرة من قطرات الندى قبل شروق الشمس .. لحناً سمعناه لثوان هنالك من الدغل .. ثم هززنا الرءوس ، وقلنا إننا توهمناه .. وداعاً أيها الغريب .. لكن كل شىء ينتهى.

The tragedy of Al-Mansur is considered one of the poet Heine's earliest works. In it, he attempted to project his own feelings onto the story of his failed love for his cousin Amalie, who married another man. This caused him a psychological and spiritual crisis, which he tried to express in the tragedy of Al-Mansur.

Welcome to Foo -- a fantastic realm that allows mankind to hope, imagine, and dream. "There are many kinds of secrets, but all secrets are much more interesting if whispered. And if that whispered secret is a haunting, life-altering one that has to hunt you down, than all the better." -- Obert...

Leah Broad's magnificent group biography resurrects these four forgotten voices, recounting lives of rebellion, heartbreak and ambition, and celebrating their musical masterpieces. Lighting up a panoramic sweep of British history over two World Wars, Quartet revolutionises the canon forever.

Nakam tells the story of “the Avengers” (Nokmim), a group of young Holocaust survivors led by poet and resistance fighter Abba Kovner, who undertook a mission of revenge against Germany following the crimes of the Holocaust. Motivated by both the atrocities they had endured and the realization that murderous antisemitic attacks on survivors continued long after the Nazi surrender, these fifty young men and women sought retaliation at a level commensurate with the devastation caused by the Holocaust, making clear to the world that Jewish blood would no longer be shed with impunity.

In today's Tehran, intrigues abound and survival depends on an intricate network of falsehoods: mullahs visit prostitutes, local mosques train barely pubescent boys in crowd-control tactics, and cosmetic surgeons promise to restore girls' virginity. Navai paints an intimate portrait of those discreet recesses in a city where the difference between modesty and profanity, loyalty and betrayal, honor and disgrace is often no more than the believability of a lie.