The First World War in the Middle East - Kristian Ulrichsen

The First World War in the Middle East - Ulrichsen, Kristian

Summary: A comprehensive history of the First World War in the Middle East.





Library Journal Reviews
Most studies of World War I focus on Europe, but Ulrichsen's (history, London Sch. of Economics) detailed and concise chronicle reminds readers of the broad impact of the war in the Middle East, deftly balancing military campaigns and social and political consequences. The author presents a precise exposition of the interests and engagement of the five imperial powers in the region and describes the costly military campaigns from the Caucasus to North East Africa and Palestine to Mesopotamia. In addition to heavy losses in men and resources for the warring powers, the local populations suffered immensely from battles, famine, disease, and destruction of property. This thorough study begins with historic background and concludes with an analysis of the postwar settlements as incipient national movements struggled with revived French and British colonial ambitions and the newly formed states in the region strained to create viable governments and economies. VERDICT Ulrichsen draws on a wide range of archival and monographic sources to present a comprehensive summary of this major theater of World War I and suggests how the war continues to influence developments in the region.

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Pomegranates & Pine Nuts - Bethany Kehdy

Pomegranates & Pine Nuts: A Stunning Collection of Lebanese, Moroccan and Persian Recipes - Kehdy, Bethany

Summary: Provides 100+ new recipes that will introduce you to the wonders of the Middle East and change any thought you might have had that this hearty cuisine is complicated or laborious.



Publishers Weekly Reviews
In her first cookbook, Kehdy tackles the cuisine of both her personal and her ethnic past. Having written her own food blog, she currently works as a recipe developer and food writer; the next step was obviously a book paying homage to the recipes of her history. With sections covering the entire meal, from mezze to dessert, for both carnivores and vegetarians, the book covers a great deal of ground. From simple Middle Eastern takes on classic dishes like Corn-on-the-Kabab and Ma'amoul Shortbread Cookies to the more complex, traditional Tamarind & Herb Mackerel Stew and Chicken Basteeya (although this is a little experimental, as classic basteeya is made with pigeon). Additional sections cover basics such as what should be kept in a "Middle Eastern and North African pantry" and "basic recipes and methods," in which many of the classical sauces, dipping sauces, ingredients, and techniques for creating the delicacies are covered. Kehdy's book presents an entire culinary world and tradition, ready to excite and challenge the Middle Eastern and North African eater.

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Code Name: Johnny Walker

Code Name: Johnny Walker: The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight with the U.S. Navy SEALs - Walker, Johnny

Summary: This extraordinary story of the Iraqi translator "Johnny Walker," who risked his life working with the Navy SEALs to save countless American lives, reveals how his job made him and his family targets, forcing them to flee to California where he continues to work with the military, training new SEALs.


Booklist Reviews
If Walker, a pseudonym, told us his real name, he'd be endangering his family in Iraq. He lives now in the U.S. but was given the code name "Johnny Walker" by the SEALs when he was working in Iraq with the Americans as an interpreter. How did an Iraqi family man wind up accompanying the American SEALs on multiple missions, many of which resulted in the deaths of Iraqi citizens? It's not a complicated question: the author is a man who loves his country but hated what was being done to it by Saddam Hussein. When the American soldiers came, he saw a chance to help bring justice and peace back to his country. This is an excellent memoir, a story about the post-9/11 war in Iraq as told by someone who is simultaneously an insider and an outsider (he's not a military man). Coauthor DeFelice is a veteran military-fiction and -nonfiction writer, and it's easy to suspect that he provided much of the book's structure and narrative description. But the voice—earnest, disillusioned, passionate, patriotic—seems undeniably to be that of the pseudonymous "Johnny Walker."

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On Saudi Arabia - Karen Elliott House

On Saudi Arabia - House, Karen Elliott

Summary: A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist from The Wall Street Journal draws on three decades of firsthand experience to profile the Saudi Arabia of today, offering insight into its leaders, citizens, cultural complexities and international prospects.




Booklist Reviews
Saudi Arabia, ruled by the royal Al Saud family, provides one of every four barrels of oil exported around the world. It is a little-understood nation of inordinate importance to the rest of the globe. As the Arab Spring has transformed other oil-producing nations in the Middle East, forcing developed nations to consider democratic ideals versus oil economies, Saudi Arabia has so far managed to stay outside that debate despite its repressive regime. House, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and former Wall Street Journal correspondent, spent five years traveling the kingdom to study a society she calls Islam Inc., owned and operated by the Al Saud royal family for generations. By exploiting deep religious, tribal, and regional differences for hundreds of years, the Sauds rely on an Islam that demands obedience of men, who demand obedience of women, and allows for no questioning of authority, despite widespread poverty, unemployment, and roiling discontent. House explores the history and fragility of the royal family and the interplay of religion, economics, and culture as well as the forces of modernity, including the Internet, that promise transformation.

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The media relations department of Hizbollah wishes you a happy birthday - Neil MacFarquhar

The media relations department of Hizbollah wishes you a happy birthday: unexpected encounters in the changing Middle East - MacFarquhar, Neil

Summary: The author narrates his encounters with residents of countries throughout the Middle East as they conduct their everyday lives and adjust to the dramatic political and social upheavals that have occurred throughout the region.

Kirkus Reviews
A sly, knowledgeable look at the changes in Arab mores and politics since the 1970s, from a New York Times journalist with extensive experience in the region.MacFarquhar (The Sand Café, 2006), the Times' former Cairo bureau chief and current UN chief, grew up in Marsa Brega, Libya, where his American father worked as a chemical engineer. Largely sheltered from the repercussions of the Six-Day War in 1967 and the military coup by Muammar Al-Qadhafi in 1969, the author returned to the Middle East after college in America to find out what he missed, learning Arabic and traveling through the area as a foreign correspondent. Here MacFarquhar attempts to uncover the positive changes in Libya, still plagued by Qadhafi's "erratic, often adolescent theatrics" and without a clear notion of his succession; Lebanon, where farmers in the Bekaa valley rue the end of the civil war in 1990, which eliminated their lucrative business growing hashish and opium; Kuwait, where the author interviewed a sex therapist (" ‘A veiled woman writing about sex. Can you imagine? They love it, sweetie,' she told me, laughing"); Saudi Arabia, where fatwas, or religious edicts, are issued daily on social and political matters; and Syria, where he spoke with Mohamed Shahrour, an outspoken critic of the narrow, violence-centered interpretation of the Koran. Everywhere the author encounters the repressive tentacles of the secret police agencies, or mukhabarat, especially in Saudi Arabia, with its Wahhabi clerics, and Morocco, ruled by the whims of the king. Having to navigate among oil wealth, repression and the simmering resentment of a struggling populace continues to plague the Arab states, stifling what MacFarquhar believes—and convincingly argues—they urgently need: new ideas, technology and innovation.A humane, well-reasoned investigation of the Arab countries of the Middle East and the tremendous vitality of their inhabitants.Agent: David Halpern/The Robbins Office Copyright Kirkus 2009 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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Axis of shame - Arthur C.Hasiotis

Axis of shame: Great Britain, Israel, the United States, and Turkey in the Middle East: how the Middle East mess came about and the only possible solution - Hasiotis, Arthur C.

Summary: [The author] has created a manifesto for political change so U.S. foreign policy can be free from the corruption of lobby money and America may begin to make positive steps toward repairing its damaged reputation and relationship with the Middle East. --P. [4] of cover.

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Arabian sands - Wilfred Thesiger

Arabian sands - Thesiger, Wilfred

Summary: Arabian Sands is Wilfred Thesiger's record of his extraordinary journey through the parched Empty Quarter of Arabia. Educated at Eton and Oxford, Thesiger was repulsed by the softness and rigidity of Western life--the machines, the calling cards, the meticulously aligned streets. In the spirit of T. E. Lawrence, he set out to explore the deserts of Arabia, traveling among peoples who had never seen a European and considered it their duty to kill Christian infidels. His now-classic account is invaluable to understanding the modern Middle East. - (Penguin Putnam)

Reviews
"Following worthily in the tradition of Burton, Lawrence, Philby and Thomas, [Arabian Sands] is, very likely, the book about Arabia to end all books about Arabia."
-The Daily Telegraph, London

"The narrative is vividly written, with a thousand little anecdotes and touches which bring back to any who have seen these countries every scene with the colour of real life."
-The Sunday Times, London


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Lone survivor - Marcus Luttrell

Lone survivor: the eyewitness account of Operation Redwing and the lost heroes of SEAL Team 10 - Luttrell, Marcus

The leader, and only survivor, of a team of U.S. Navy SEALs sent to northern Afghanistan to capture a well-known al Qaeda leader chronicles the events of the battle that killed his teammates and offers insight into the training of this elite group of warriors. - (Baker & Taylor)


Review
Four US Navy SEALS departed one clear night in early July, 2005 for the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border for a reconnaissance mission. Their task was to document the activity of an al Qaeda leader rumored to have a small army in a Taliban stronghold. Five days later, only one of those Navy SEALS made it out alive. This is the story of the only survivor of Operation Redwing, SEAL team leader Marcus Luttrell, and the extraordinary firefight that led to the largest loss of life in American Navy SEAL history. His squadmates fought valiantly beside him until he was the only one left alive, blasted by an RPG into a place where his pursuers could not find him. Over the next four days, terribly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell crawled for miles through the mountains and was taken in by sympathetic villagers who risked their lives to keep him safe from surrounding Taliban warriors. A born and raised Texan, Marcus Luttrell takes us from the rigors of SEAL training, where he and his fellow SEALs discovered what it took to join the most elite of the American special forces, to a fight in the desolate hills of Afghanistan for which they never could have been prepared. His account of his squadmates' heroism and mutual support renders an experience for which two of his squadmates were posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for combat heroism that is both heartrending and life-affirming. In this rich chronicle of courage and sacrifice, honor and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers a powerful narrative of modern war. - (Little Brown & Co)

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