Spontaneous, unforeseen & contagious, the uprisings of the Arab Spring took everyone
- participants included
- by surprise.

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An acclaimed Middle East expert & Foreign Policy blogger explores the ramifications of upheaval in the Arab world, & how the West should react. The Middle East today is undergoing one of the most fundamental changes in its modern history: the empowerment of a new generation of Arabs who reject the world they inherited. In The Arab Uprising, the director of George Washington University's Institute for Middle East Studies maintains that the revolutions that have so far brought down the governments of Egypt, Tunisia & Libya are only the beginning. It is far too soon to know whether these events will produce new democracies or something else entirely. Whatever happens, we must now come to grips with a region where public opinion actually matters, perhaps for the first time in the region's history. Informed by inside access to the Obama Administration's decision-making process & a wealth of knowledge about youth activists & Islamists alike, The Arab Uprising is a necessary guide to the changing lay of the land in the Middle East & North Africa. ...

Jeremy Bowen has been the BBC`s Middle East correspondent for twelve years & has been on the ground for them as the recent revolutions have swept through the region. Realising this as a game-changing moment in the history of the Middle East, The Arab Uprisings captures the thoughts & feelings of the people involved as the events unfolded, putting these revolutions in their political context, & using them as a prism through which to understand the broader history & landscape of the Middle East. The book will look at the world the demonstrators rejected & its Arab dictators. The author will examine brutal police states, tribal loyalty & foreign help. The West`s response & Israel`s too, will form part of the narrative. This is an urgent & authoritative account of the seismic political changes rocking the Middle East, from one of the foremost reporters of our time. ...

Jeremy Bowen has been the BBC`s Middle East correspondent for twelve years & has been on the ground for them as the recent revolutions have swept through the region. Realising this as a game-changing moment in the history of the Middle East, The Arab Uprisings captures the thoughts & feelings of the people involved as the events unfolded, putting these revolutions in their political context, & using them as a prism through which to understand the broader history & landscape of the Middle East. The book will look at the world the demonstrators rejected & its Arab dictators. The author will examine brutal police states, tribal loyalty & foreign help. The West`s response & Israel`s too, will form part of the narrative. This is an urgent & authoritative account of the seismic political changes rocking the Middle East, from one of the foremost reporters of our time. ...

Whether you are a tourist, a business traveler or an expatriate, this book is an essential companion. The Arab World Handbook collects everything into one essential volume. Covering all the countries of the Arabian peninsula
- Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the UAE & Yemen
- it contains advice on planning a visit & making a home in the Arab world. The book covers everything from basic language & pronunciation to etiquette, culture & business practice. There are sections on geography, history, government & the law, plus useful maps & country-by-country surveys.

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THE THIRD EDITION OF THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER, REVISED & UPDATED`A rich, galloping narrative that spans the Arab world...outstanding, gripping & exuberant...full of flamboyant character sketches, witty asides & magisterial scholarship, that explains much of what we need to know about the world today` Simon Sebag Montefiore` Anyone who seeks to understand why the Islamic world bears a grudge against the West should read The Arabs` Sir Alaistair Horne Starting with the Ottoman conquests in the sixteenth century, this landmark book follows the story of the Arabs through the era of European imperialism & the Superpower rivalries of the Cold War, to the present age of unipolar American power. Drawing on the writings & eyewitness accounts of those who lived through the tumultuous years of Arab history, The Arabs balances different voices
- politicians, intellectuals, students, men & women, poets & novelists, famous, infamous & the completely unknown
- to give a rich, complex sense of life over nearly five centuries. Rogan`s book is remarkable for its geographical sweep, covering the Arab world from North Africa through the Arabian Peninsula, & for the depth in which it explores every facet of modern Arab history. Charting the evolution of Arab identity from Ottomanism to Arabism to Islamism, it covers themes including the conflict between national independence & foreign domination, the Arab-Israeli struggle & the peace process, Abdel Nasser & the rise of Arab Nationalism, the political & economic power of oil & the conflict between secular & Islamic values. This multilayered, fascinating & definitive work is the essential guide to understanding the history of the modern Arab world
- & its future.


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` Go to the Aran Islands. Live there as if you were one of the people themselves, express a life that has never found expression.` J.M. Synge did exactly as W.B. Yeats suggested &, revisiting these harsh yet beautiful specks of land off Ireland`s west coast over a period of five years, created a literary masterpiece. Synge immersed himself in the islanders` lives as they steered their curaghs through Atlantic waves, mourned their dead, celebrated weddings & suffered the horrors of eviction. The Aran Islands weaves their stories with Synge`s own & the result, as Colm Tóibí­n has observed, is that ` Unlike most travel books of 100 years ago, it has not dated at all.` This is the first paperback edition in which Jack B. Yeats`s unforgettable drawings, commissioned for the first Dublin edition, have appeared alongside Synge`s haunting prose. Samuel Beckett was a lifelong admirer of Yeats`s `extraordinary craftsmanship` before which, he believed, `one can simply bow, wonder-struck`. ...

Inishmore, Inishmaan, Inisheer: wild, isolated, starkly beautiful & of great historical importance. Lying in the Atlantic Ocean off Galway Bay, the Aran Islands are a place apart. Here island life has preserved many aspects of Irish culture
- its language, customs & traditions. These islands bear witness to events from earliest times & have experienced Celtic occupation, the arrival of Christianity, invasions, sieges, famine & evictions. This history is evident in the massive Iron Age forts, the Early Christian ruins, & in the literature, songs & images from these 'three stepping stones out of Europe'. A comprehensive, beautifully illustrated introduction to & lasting memento of these unique islands.
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In 1907 J. M. Synge achieved both notoriety & lasting fame with The Playboy of the Western World. The Aran Islands, published in the same year, records his visits to the islands in 1898-1901, when he was gathering the folklore & anecdotes out of which he forged The Playboy & his other major dramas. Yet this book is much more than a stage in the evolution of Synge the dramatist. As Tim Robinson explains in his introduction, ” If Ireland is intriguing as being an island off the west of Europe, then Aran, as an island off the west of Irel&, is still more so; it is Ireland raised to the power of two.” Towards the end of the last century Irish nationalists came to identify the area as the country`s uncorrupted heart, the repository of its ancient language, culture & spiritual values. It was for these reasons that Yeats suggested Synge visit the islands to record their way of life. The result is a passionate exploration of a triangle of contradictory relationships
- between an island community still embedded in its ancestral ways but solicited by modernism, a physical environment of ascetic loveliness & savagely unpredictable moods, & Synge himself, formed by modern European thought but in love with the primitive.
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The archaeology & architecture of Afghanistan have never been the subject of their own book before; through concise description & discussion Edgar Knobloch here reveals their importance both as works of art, & as symbols of the country`s past, geography & character. Tracing the historical & cultural development of artistic & architectural styles, this book comprehensively examines the major sites, with detailed description of their buildings & decoration. The extent to which these structures were influenced by Afghanistan`s long history of war & invasion
- from Alexander the Great to the present day
- is discussed against a clear & informative outline of the country`s past & present. Illustrated with evocative photographs of both monuments & daily life, the book describes in detail the artistic movements & achievements of Afghanistan, while constantly reminding the reader that these images, taken by the author in 1978, show a cultural heritage which may no longer exist. Edgar Knobloch studied Middle Eastern History at the Charles University & the Oriental Institute in Prague. He has visited, researched & photographed archaeological sites & architectural monuments throughout the Islamic world. His photographs have been exhibited at the British Museum, the Royal Geographic Society & the School of Oriental & African Studies.

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