Best Saudi Arabia History

For the sake of her daughters, she has decided to take the risk of speaking out about the life of women in her country, regardless of their rank. Although they share affection, confidences and an easy camaraderie within the confines of the women's quarters, they also share a history of appaling oppressions, everyday occurrences that in any other culture would be seen as shocking human rights violations; thirteen-year-old girls forced to marry men five times their age, young women killed by drowning, stoning, or isolation in the women's room, a padded, windowless cell where women are confined with neither light nor conversation until death claims them.By speaking out, Sultana risks bringing the wrath of the Saudi establishment upon her head and te heads of her children. Jean Sasson is an American writer whose work mainly centers around women in the Middle East and the injustices that they suffer at the hands of a patriarchal society.

A ferociously intimate memoir by a devout woman from a modest family in Saudi Arabia who became the unexpected leader of a courageous movement to support women’s right to drive. Her account of why a single working mother’s life compelled her to confront the kingdom’s fiercely patriarchal ways is touching and revealing in equal measure.” (Azadeh Moaveni, author of Lipstick Jihad). Manal al-Sharif refuses to hide her scars, unveiling what she endured and sacrificed to become a professional who has fearlessly pushed the boundaries of tradition.” (Elena Gorokhova, author of Russian Tattoo). “There are vignettes of laughter and love... [and] glimpses of rich, vibrant Arab life.... A testament to how women in Muslim countries are helping change their culture, one step at a time.” ( New York Journal of Books ).

Drawing on early eyewitness sources and on history, politics, religion, and psychology, she renders him as a man in full, in all his complexity and vitality. Impeccably researched and thrillingly readable, Hazleton’s narrative creates vivid insight into a man navigating between idealism and pragmatism, faith and politics, nonviolence and violence, rejection and acclaim. "A rich biography… Those who read it will come away well prepared to understand the prophet whose message, 14 centuries later, is the creed of more than a billion and a half people.” – The San Francisco Chronicle. "This book offers a welcome chance to read [Muhammed's] life story in a more familiar and accessible form than the Islamic sources… The First Muslim succeeds. "Like her subject, Hazleton brilliantly navigates 'the vast and often terrifying arena in which politics and religion intersect,' revealing the deep humanity of faith." "The book's focus is an effort to portray the prophet's unique circumstances and recognizable humanity… Hazleton's biography covers the broad strokes of his life with fairness—she doesn't gloss over his more fallible moments—and insight." "This story is deep with details not only of Muhammad's life journey, but with historic information about the culture of the times in Arabia... filled with rich color of the locations, culture, and people; it is a book plentiful with tales of Muhammad's life that follow logically from orphan to religious leader, but more than that, it enriches us with the detail of a time and place in history." " A genuine attempt to try to understand the human experience Muhammad went through… Hazleton queries and questions in a way that will resonate with a non-academic audience trying to come to grips with the fastest growing religion on the planet. It is a welcome antidote to the barrage of hatred and distortion to which Islam has been subjected since the early Bush years , an opportunity for balance to be restored and for those of us who don’t subscribe to the extremes to regain the middle ground.” – Guernica. "Hazleton... is in the revelation business: She's out to consider Muhammad as a mortal human, a man who lived and died and was vulnerable... A world-class history teacher who contextualizes the realities of [his] far-off times... [she] can effortlessly distill years of research into a few conversational sentences." Hazleton, a former Jerusalem-based journalist and a psychologist, brings both of her professional skills to bear in this perceptive work, examining Muhammad’s life within its historical context and offering insights into the struggles of the early Muslim community.

Every crisis that has ripped through this region in the ensuing decades, from the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to the ongoing intifada , is a direct consequence of those six days of fighting. Writing with a novelist’s command of narrative and a historian’s grasp of fact and motive, Michael B. Oren reconstructs both the lightning-fast action on the battlefields and the political shocks that electrified the world. Extraordinary personalities—Moshe Dayan and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin—rose and toppled from power as a result of this war; borders were redrawn; daring strategies brilliantly succeeded or disastrously failed in a matter of hours. A towering work of history and an enthralling human narrative, Six Days of War is the most important book on the Middle East conflict to appear in a generation. [Oren] has woven a seamless narrative out of a staggering variety of diplomatic and military strands.” —The New York Times. “With a remarkably assured style, Oren elucidates nearly every aspect of the conflict. “[In] Michael Oren’s richly detailed and lucid account, the familiar story is thrilling once again. [Oren’s] narrative is precise but written with great literary flair. This is the most complete history to date of the Six Day War of 1967, in which Israel entered and began its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. While no account can be definitive until Arab archives open, Oren, a Princeton-trained senior fellow at Jerusalem's Shalem Center who has served as director of Israel's department of inter-religious affairs and as an adviser to Israel's U.N. delegation, utilizes newly available archival sources and a spectrum of interviews with participants, including many Arabs, to fill gaps and correct misconceptions. Further, Six Days of War is an attack on "post-Zionism": the school of politics and history that casts Israel as the author of policies that intentionally promote the destuction of Palestine as a separate entity and of Palestinians as a people, not least through the occupation that began with the 1967 War. About the nature of Israeli policy since the war, the book says little, but finds that "for all its military conquests, Israel was still incapable of imposing the peace it craved." Many books, e.g., Ahron Bregman's Israel's War: 1947-1993, Tibi Bassam's Conflict and War in the Middle East, 1967-91, and Eric Hammel's Six Days in June, cover a broader period, rely heavily on analysis, or fall short of objectivity.

As naval historian David F. Winkler examines these developing relationships, he offers a fascinating overview of Bahraini history, the entry of American humanitarian and economic interests, the establishment of an American naval presence in the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflicts, and the downfall of the Iranian shah, among other subjects. Naval Reserve and campaign director for the U.S. Navy Museum Cold War Gallery at the Naval Historical Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Completely redesigned for today's generation of cooks and food enthusiasts, the 25th Anniversary Edition of Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies by Najmieh Batmanglij provides a treasure trove of recipes, along with an immersive cultural experience for those seeking to understand this ancient and timeless cuisine. ABOUT THE BOOK'S TITLE Food of Life, the title of the book, comes from the Persian words nush-e jan, literally "food of life"--a traditional wish in Iran that a dish will be enjoyed. The full-color Food of Life 25. th. Anniversary Edition contains 50% more pages than its 2009 predecessor and special added features: *New Recipes adapted from Sixteenth-Century Persian cookbooks. *Added vegetarian section for most recipes. *Comprehensive dictionary of all ingredients. *A glance at a few thousand years of the history of Persian Cooking. *Master recipes with photos illustrating the steps. One of the most exciting cookbooks I've seen in a while …I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in Iran's glorious food culture. "This summer's most coveted tome...the saffron-scented pages of which are guaranteed to create luscious new sense memories--and inspire future dinner invitations." "Divine cookbook...stunningly beautiful..." --Alice Waters. "I love Persian Food....Exceptional cookbook, full, heavy, and good."

In a thrilling dramatic narrative, awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, Joby Warrick traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents. In Black Flags, an unprecedented character-driven account of the rise of ISIS, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Joby Warrick shows how the zeal of this one man and the strategic mistakes of Presidents Bush and Obama led to the banner of ISIS being raised over huge swaths of Syria and Iraq. “Gripping … Mr. Warrick has a gift for constructing narratives with a novelistic energy and detail, and in this volume, he creates the most revealing portrait yet laid out in a book of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the founding father of the organization that would become the Islamic State … For readers interested in the roots of the Islamic State and the evil genius of its godfather, there is no better book to begin with than Black Flags .” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “Warrick charts Zarqawi’s rise from booze-swilling Jordanian street tough to one of the most brutal jihadists in the world. “A revealing, riveting and exquisitely detailed account of the life and death of Zarqawi, the improbable terrorist mastermind, and the rise of the movement now known as the Islamic State (also known as ISIS).” — San Francisco Chronicle. "A detailed, step-by-step narrative demonstrating how repeated miscalculations by the United States, Arab leaders and al-Qaeda wound up empowering the Islamic State ... Black Flags provides answers in this still-unfolding history of what happens when religious radicals try to outdo one another for the mantle of God’s favorite." Black Flags is an invaluable guide to an unfolding tragedy that must be understood before it can be ended.” —Lawrence Wright, author of Thirteen Days in September and The Looming Tower “Joby Warrick is one of America's leading national security reporters, so it's no surprise that Black Flags is the most deeply reported and well-written account we have about ISIS and its terrorist army.” —Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad “Joby Warrick weaves Black Flags with the tradecraft of a spy, the mind of an investigative reporter, and the pen of a novelist. We should all thank Warrick for telling a hard truth the government will not want to hear: how U.S. policies helped give birth to the so-called Islamic State.” —Dana Priest, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter and author of Top Secret America “Drawing on his unrivaled sources and access, Joby Warrick has written a profoundly important and groundbreaking book, one that reads like a novel, riveting from the first page to the last. No book better explains the miscalculations, wrong turns, and bad luck that led to the rise of ISIS.” —Rick Atkinson, author of The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 “[A] crisply written, chilling account … Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Warrick confidently weaves a cohesive narrative from an array of players—American officials, CIA officers, Jordanian royalty and security operatives, religious figures, and terrorists—producing an important geopolitical overview with the grisly punch of true-crime nonfiction … The author focuses on dramatic flashpoints and the roles of key players, creating an exciting tale with a rueful tone, emphasizing how the Iraq invasion's folly birthed ISIS and created many missed opportunities to stop al-Zarqawi quickly.” — Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review) “Joby Warrick has written a penetrating and fascinating look at the birth and evolution of the world’s most violent terrorist network, ISIS, or ISIL.

Stunning photography pairs with informative and personal text by the wife of the most recent United States ambassador to Qatar to give Westerners traveling to Qatar on business or for World Cup preparations an inside understanding of this moderate Muslim country and the way it attempts to become modern and engaged with the world without losing its heritage. Diana Untermeyer worked in the White House during the George H. W. Bush administration and at the Christ Church Cathedral in Houston before moving to Qatar as the ambassador's wife.

This definitive account of the Gulf War relates the previously untold story of the U.S. war with Iraq in the early 1990s. This interesting account of the 1991 Persian Gulf War by a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter features a number of original observations about the conduct of the war. For example, Atkinson discloses that the Bush administration allowed navy warships to fire cruise missiles covertly over Iran against Iraqi targets.

Award-winning journalist Jim Krane charts the history of Dubai from its earliest days, considers the influence of the family who has ruled it since the nineteenth century, and looks at the effect of the global economic downturn on a place that many tout as a blueprint for a more stable Middle East. In City of Gold, Jim Krane, who reported for the AP from Dubai, brings us a boots-on-the-ground look at this fascinating place by walking its streets, talking to its business titans, its prostitutes, and the hard-bitten men who built its fanciful skyline. While many think Dubai's glory days have passed, insiders like Jim Krane who got to know the city and its creators firsthand realize there's much more to come in the City of Gold, a place that, in just a few years, has made itself known to nearly every person on earth. Krane systematically tackles pretty much every important aspect of Dubai's past and present, with absorbing accounts of the city's history and the personalities and achievements of its charismatic rulers through to vexed contemporary issues such as human-rights abuses and environmental concerns, condensing a vast amount of detail into a compellingly readable roller coaster of a narrative.” ―The Rough Guide to Dubai. There is no better book about Dubai, and there may never be.” ―Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at CSIS, author of The Vital Triangle: China, the United States, and the Middle East. In City of Gold, Jim Krane traces the fascinating and long overlooked history of Dubai, from pirate battles and eccentric British explorers to the glittering spires of a metropolis that emerged from nowhere, in prose as spare and enchanting as a desert fairy tale.” ―James Hider, Middle East correspondent for The Times (London), author of The Spiders of Allah: Travels of an Unbeliever on the Frontline of Holy War. Jim Krane has written a fascinating account of a Middle East we rarely get to hear about. Jim Krane's book on Dubai's rise and fall--in this era of global financial crisis--is a cautionary tale for us all.” ―Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, NPR's Middle East correspondent".

Every crisis that has ripped through this region in the ensuing decades, from the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to the ongoing intifada , is a direct consequence of those six days of fighting. Writing with a novelist’s command of narrative and a historian’s grasp of fact and motive, Michael B. Oren reconstructs both the lightning-fast action on the battlefields and the political shocks that electrified the world. Extraordinary personalities—Moshe Dayan and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin—rose and toppled from power as a result of this war; borders were redrawn; daring strategies brilliantly succeeded or disastrously failed in a matter of hours. A towering work of history and an enthralling human narrative, Six Days of War is the most important book on the Middle East conflict to appear in a generation. [Oren] has woven a seamless narrative out of a staggering variety of diplomatic and military strands.” —The New York Times. “With a remarkably assured style, Oren elucidates nearly every aspect of the conflict. “[In] Michael Oren’s richly detailed and lucid account, the familiar story is thrilling once again. [Oren’s] narrative is precise but written with great literary flair. This is the most complete history to date of the Six Day War of 1967, in which Israel entered and began its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. While no account can be definitive until Arab archives open, Oren, a Princeton-trained senior fellow at Jerusalem's Shalem Center who has served as director of Israel's department of inter-religious affairs and as an adviser to Israel's U.N. delegation, utilizes newly available archival sources and a spectrum of interviews with participants, including many Arabs, to fill gaps and correct misconceptions. Further, Six Days of War is an attack on "post-Zionism": the school of politics and history that casts Israel as the author of policies that intentionally promote the destuction of Palestine as a separate entity and of Palestinians as a people, not least through the occupation that began with the 1967 War. About the nature of Israeli policy since the war, the book says little, but finds that "for all its military conquests, Israel was still incapable of imposing the peace it craved." Many books, e.g., Ahron Bregman's Israel's War: 1947-1993, Tibi Bassam's Conflict and War in the Middle East, 1967-91, and Eric Hammel's Six Days in June, cover a broader period, rely heavily on analysis, or fall short of objectivity.

Published with a new afterword from the author―the classic, bestselling account of how the modern Middle East was created. “Wonderful...No book published in recent years has more lasting relevance to our understanding of the Middle East.” ― Jack Miles, Los Angeles Book Review.

While the Americans were fighting in Vietnam, a struggle of even greater strategic significance was taking place in the Middle East: the Sultanate of Oman guards the entrance to the Arabian Gulf, and thus controls the movement of oil from that region. Ian Gardiner is a historian and author.

Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L. Friedman drew upon his ten years of experience reporting from Lebanon and Israel to write this now-classic work of journalism. Thomas L. Friedman is an internationally renowned author, reporter, and columnist―the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes and the author of five bestselling books, among them From Beirut to Jerusalem and The World Is Flat . At the Times , he has won three Pulitzer Prizes: in 1983 for international reporting (from Lebanon), in 1988 for international reporting (from Israel), and in 2002 for his columns after the September 11th attacks. His fourth book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (2005) became a #1 New York Times bestseller and received the inaugural Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award in November 2005.

Untangling Yemen’s history before examining the country’s role in both al-Qaeda and the wider jihadist movement today, Clark presents a lively, clear, and up-to-date account of a little-known state whose chronic instability is increasingly engaging the general reader. The author illustrates her analysis with a string of vignettes drawn from her intrepid journeys into the remotest parts of the country . "An experienced foreign correspondent casts a timely light on the complex fissiparous, impoverished country now seen as a haven for Al-Qaeda. " Dancing on the Heads of Snakes makes. Yemen’s history and contemporary affairs accessible to the general reader. Clark tracks Yemen’s turbulent past and unstable present with a light touch, combining historical travelogue with investigative reportage. Dancing on the Heads of Snakes is a commendable addition to the canon of literature on Yemen and does what many previous books have failed to do: open up knowledge of a complex and often forgotten country to a much wider audience. "Untangling Yemen’s history before examining the country’s role in both Al Qaeda and the wider jihadist movement today, [Victoria Clark] presents an up-to-date account of a state that ought to be better known. The text, backed by numerous references and an excellent bibliography, will engage even those readers who are unacquainted with Yemen, its history and today’s complexities. She now works as a freelance journalist and writer, contributing to the Independent , Prospect magazine, and the Tablet.

The definitive biography of the iron-willed leader, chain-smoking political operative, and tea-and-cake-serving grandmother who became the fourth prime minister of Israel Golda Meir was a world figure unlike any other. Fund-raising in America in 1948, secretly meeting in Amman with King Abdullah right before Israel's declaration of independence, mobbed by thousands of Jews in a Moscow synagogue in 1948 as Israel's first representative to the USSR, serving as minister of labor and foreign minister in the 1950s and 1960s, Golda brought fiery oratory, plainspoken appeals, and shrewd deal-making to the cause to which she had dedicated her life—the welfare and security of the State of Israel and its inhabitants. One finishes Klagsbrun’s monumental volume—which is both a biography of Golda and a biography of Israel in her time—with a deepened sense that modern Israel, its prime ministers, and its survival is a story of biblical proportions.” —Commentary “The most comprehensive, best-researched, and carefully nuanced study of Israel’s fourth prime minister published to date. “A majestic and very important account of the extraordinary life of the American-raised woman who became a charismatic and powerful prime minister of modern Israel. I thought I knew her life story, but Klagsbrun’s compelling story of Golda's triumphs and trials, her irresistible personality, gave me a fresh appreciation of this historic woman.” —Tom Brokaw, author of The Greatest Generation “Masterful [and] compelling. Part biblically reminiscent drama, part novel-like interiority, part American-inspired pioneering, Golda Meir’s story, from childhood pogroms to Milwaukee schoolteacher to prime minister of the beleaguered reborn state of Israel, has no parallel in the annals of nations.” —Cynthia Ozick “Golda Meir—immigrant, Zionist, feminist, and wartime prime minister of Israel—claimed far more than one woman’s share of history. In Lioness, Francine Klagsbrun superbly captures Golda’s courage and unrelenting commitment to the founding and survival of a Jewish state.” —John A. Farrell, author of Richard Nixon: The Life “A masterful biography—it’s scholarly and gorgeously researched, but most of all it’s the vivid story of a tough, complicated, remarkable woman who led Israel during a crucial period in its history. “Klagsbrun’s prodigious biography goes far beyond previous hagiographies to place Golda’s personal life against the backdrop of the emergence of Israel on the world stage.