The Much Too Promised Land
America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace
Written by Aaron David Miller

Format: Trade Paperback, 416 pages
Publisher: Bantam
On Sale: December 30, 2008
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-553-38414-7 (0-553-38414-7)

Adopted in courses at:
Cornell University, George Mason University, New York University, Union College, Unviersity of Virginia, and Wofford College.

“Extraordinary…. Miller evinces genuine compassion for both sides in the conflict … while maintaining a detachment that allows him to draw hard conclusions…. Miller’s writing is both approachable and deeply smart.”
–Publishers Weekly, starred... Read more >

Jerusalem
The Biography
Written by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Format: Trade Paperback, 704 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: September 18, 2012
Price: $20.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-28050-3 (0-307-28050-0)

Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the prize of empires, the site of Judgment Day and the battlefield of today’s clash of civilizations. From King David to the 21st century, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to the... Read more >

Jerusalem
The Biography
Written by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Format: Hardcover, 688 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: October 25, 2011
Price: $35.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-26651-4 (0-307-26651-6)

The history of Jerusalem is the history of the world, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to the American Century. Now the author of the acclaimed Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar presents a grippingly original epic history of Jerusalem through the lives of those who created, destroyed... Read more >

Lost History
The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists
Written by Michael H. Morgan

Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Publisher: National Geographic
On Sale: June 19, 2007
Price: $26.00
ISBN: 978-1-4262-0092-2 (1-4262-0092-7)

In an era when the relationship between Islam and the West seems mainly defined by mistrust and misunderstanding, we often forget that for centuries Muslim civilization was the envy of the world. Essential reading for any student seeking to understand the major role played by the early Muslim world in influencing... Read more >

Righteous Victims
A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1998
Written by Benny Morris

Format: Trade Paperback, 800 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: August 28, 2001
Price: $22.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-74475-7 (0-679-74475-4)

Tracing the roots of political Zionism back to the pogroms of Russia and the Dreyfus Affair, Morris describes the gradual influx of Jewish settlers into Palestine and the impact they had on the Arab population. Following the Holocaust, the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948 resulted in the establishment of the State... Read more >

Cities of Salt

Written by Abdelrahman Munif

Format: Trade Paperback, 640 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: July 17, 1989
Price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-0-394-75526-7 (0-394-75526-X)

Set in an unnamed Persian Gulf kingdom in the 1930s, this remarkable novel tells the story of the disruption and diaspora of a poor oasis community following the discovery of oil there. The meeting of Arabs and the Americans who, in essence, colonized the remote region is a cultural confrontation in... Read more >

Six Days of War
June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
Written by Michael B. Oren

Format: Trade Paperback, 480 pages
Publisher: Presidio Press
On Sale: June 3, 2003
Price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-0-345-46192-6 (0-345-46192-4)

2003 Los Angeles Times Book Award for HISTORY

Though it lasted for only six tense days in June, the 1967 Arab-Israeli war never really ended. 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... Read more >

Istanbul
Memories and the City
Written by Orhan Pamuk

Format: Trade Paperback, 400 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: July 11, 2006
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-3388-1 (1-4000-3388-8)

A portrait, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost man of letters, author of the acclaimed novels Snow and My Name Is Red.

Blending reminiscence with history; family photographs with portraits of poets and pashas; art criticism, metaphysical musing, and, now and again, a... Read more >

The Life of David

Written by Robert Pinsky

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Schocken
On Sale: August 26, 2008
Price: $12.95
ISBN: 978-0-8052-1153-5 (0-8052-1153-5)

Poet, warrior, and king; sweet singer of Israel and adulterous lover of Batsheva; devoted friend of Jonathan and wily opponent of Saul, the complex character of King David looms large in our contemporary minds as it has in myth and legend for centuries. “He must have actually existed, and most of... Read more >

The Military Error
Baghdad and Beyond in America's War of Choice
Written by Thomas Powers

Format: Trade Paperback, 140 pages
Publisher: New York Review Books
On Sale: August 12, 2008
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 978-1-59017-299-5 (1-59017-299-X)

Why did George W. Bush invade Iraq? What were the real motives, the overarching policy decisions that drove events from September 11 until the war began?

To a large extent, we still don’t know. But by now we do know in some detail, as Thomas Powers carefully explains in the essays collected... Read more >

Osama
The Making of a Terrorist
Written by Jonathan Randal

Format: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: September 13, 2005
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-70823-7 (0-375-70823-5)

How is it possible for one middle-aged Saudi millionaire to threaten the world's only superpower? This is the question at the center of Jonathan Randal's riveting, timely account of Osama bin Laden's life and role in the rise of terrorism in the Middle East. Randal traces the current sources of Osama's... Read more >

Cairo
The City Victorious
Written by Max Rodenbeck

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: February 22, 2000
Price: $15.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-76727-5 (0-679-76727-4)

The seat of pharaohs and sultans, the prize of conquerors from Alexander to Napoleon, Cairo has never stopped reinventing itself. Even in this century, as Max Rodenbeck shows us, the city has transformed itself yet again--from a glamorous European outpost into the nationalistic capital of the Arab world. And, most recently... Read more >

Those Who Forget the Past
The Question of Anti-Semitism
Afterword by Cynthia Ozick
Edited by Ron Rosenbaum

Format: Trade Paperback, 720 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: May 11, 2004
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7203-0 (0-8129-7203-1)

"Rosenbaum's outstanding compilation of nearly 50 sharp essays has the advantage of not only displaying a wide range of views but juxtaposing pieces in debate with one another...This is an estimable collection and may find a place with course adopters as well as common readers." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

After the horrors... Read more >

A History of Israel
From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time
Written by Howard M. Sachar

Format: Trade Paperback, 1296 pages
Publisher: Knopf
On Sale: May 15, 2007
Price: $39.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-71132-9 (0-375-71132-5)

Sachar gives us the full story of Israel from its early-19th-century ideological beginnings through its ensuing growth as a sovereign republic, giving full weight to diplomatic, political, economic, cultural and military factors—always against the matrix of parallel and interacting events in other countries.

Sachar's updating begins with negotiations toward the interim... Read more >

Peace And Its Discontents
Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process
Written by Edward W. Said

Format: Trade Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: January 3, 1996
Price: $15.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-76725-1 (0-679-76725-8)

In this probing and impassioned collection of essays, Edward Said explains why the much-vaunted peace process between Israel and the Palestinian people has yet to produce peace--and is unlikely to as presently constituted.  Whether Said is addressing the fatal flaws in the PLO's bargain, denouncing fundamentalists on both sides of the religious... Read more >

The Politics of Dispossession
The Struggle for Palestinian Self-Determination, 1969-1994
Written by Edward W. Said

Format: Trade Paperback, 512 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: May 30, 1995
Price: $21.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-76145-7 (0-679-76145-4)

In this collection of thirty-nine essays--which have appeared over the past twenty-five years in a wide range of publications--Said explores the issues behind the Palestinian struggle for statehood.  He provides a detailed context for understanding the recent autonomy agreement between the P.L.O. and Israel; critically assesses of United States policy toward the... Read more >

The Question of Palestine

Written by Edward W. Said

Format: Trade Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: April 7, 1992
Price: $16.95
ISBN: 978-0-679-73988-3 (0-679-73988-2)

Updated with a new Preface and Epilogue in 1992.  Praised as "a compelling call for identity and justice" (Anthony Lewis) when first published in 1977, Said's impassioned and authoritative account of the history and politics of Palestine and the struggles of the Palestinian people has now been expanded to portray the changed... Read more >

The Process
1,100 Days that Changed the Middle East
Written by Uri Savir

Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Publisher: Vintage
On Sale: June 29, 1999
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-679-74561-7 (0-679-74561-0)

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

"Meet your Enemy Number One," a nervous Norwegian diplomat said to Uri Savir, the young director-general of Israel's Foreign Ministry, as he introduced him to Abu Ala, one of Yasser Arafat's top aides. They were in Oslo, and this was the first official... Read more >

The Balfour Declaration
The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Written by Jonathan Schneer

Format: Trade Paperback, 480 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
On Sale: January 3, 2012
Price: $17.00
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7603-8 (0-8129-7603-7)

Winner, 2010 National Jewish Book Award (Writing Based on Archival Material)

Issued in London in 1917, the Balfour Declaration was one of the key documents of the twentieth century. It committed Britain to supporting the establishment in Palestine of “a National Home for the Jewish people,” and its reverberations continue to be... Read more >

Cradle & Crucible
History and Faith in the Middle East
Written by Daniel Schorr, David Fromkin, Zahi Hawass, Milton Viorst and Sandra Mackey

Format: Trade Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: National Geographic
On Sale: February 1, 2004
Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-0-7922-6597-9 (0-7922-6597-1)

The world’s crossroads, the Middle East is the most contested and controversial area on Earth. It is also the cradle of the first great civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt and can be said to have given birth to human striving—and strife. Through photographs, maps, and the writings of highly respected authors... Read more >

The Two Faces of Islam
Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism
Written by Stephen Schwartz

Format: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: September 9, 2003
Price: $18.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-3045-3 (1-4000-3045-5)

In this informed, compelling exploration of Moslem beliefs and of the sectarian conflicts within the community, a Jewish historian paints a sympathetic portrait of mainstream Islam and exposes the centuries-old roots of Osama bin Laden’s extremism.

The difficult, protracted war against terrorism has raised unsettling questions about the nature of Islam and... Read more >

Armed Conflict
The Lessons of Modern Warfare
Written by Brian Steed

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Presidio Press
On Sale: January 1, 2003
Price: $19.00
ISBN: 978-0-89141-803-0 (0-89141-803-2)

A military theorist and experienced armor officer, Brian Steed provides insights into the future of armed conflict.

He analyzes five battles, one each in Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands, the Persian Gulf, and Somalia; placing all in an appropriate historical and geographic context. He also explores the specific strategies employed in each... Read more >

The Landmark Herodotus
The Histories
Written by Robert B. Strassler

Format: Trade Paperback, 1024 pages
Publisher: Anchor
On Sale: June 2, 2009
Price: $28.95
ISBN: 978-1-4000-3114-6 (1-4000-3114-1)

From the editor of the widely praised The Landmark Thucydides, a new Landmark Edition of The Histories by Herodotus.

Cicero called Herodotus "the father of history," and his only work, The Histories, is considered the first true piece of historical writing in Western literature. With lucid prose, Herodotus's account of the rise... Read more >

The Landmark Herodotus
The Histories
Written by Robert B. Strassler

Format: Hardcover, 1024 pages
Publisher: Pantheon
On Sale: November 6, 2007
Price: $45.00
ISBN: 978-0-375-42109-9 (0-375-42109-2)

From the editor of the widely praised The Landmark Thucydides, a new Landmark Edition of The Histories by Herodotus, the greatest classical work of history ever written.

Herodotus was a Greek historian living in Ionia during the fifth century BCE. He traveled extensively through the lands of the Mediterranean and the Black... Read more >

Afghanistan
A Russian Soldier's Story
Written by Vladislav Tamarov

Format: Trade Paperback, 192 pages
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
On Sale: October 30, 2001
Price: $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-58008-416-1 (1-58008-416-8)

Drafted into the Soviet Army in April 1984 and sent at the age of 19 to serve in Afghanistan as a minesweeper, Vladislav Tamarov turned in secret to the pen and the camera to chronicle his 621 days of war. Photographs depicting the haunted faces of both soldiers and civilians, the... Read more >