What Every American Should Know About the Middle East
What Every American Should Know About the Middle East

Author: Melissa Rossi

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2008-12-30

Total Pages: 518

ISBN-13: 9780452289598

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The What Every American Should Know series returns with a timely guide to the region Americans need to understand the most (and know the least) The latest edition of Melissa Rossi's popular What Every American Should Know series gives a crash course on one of the most complex and important regions of the world. In this comprehensive and engaging reference book, Rossi offers a clear analysis of the issues playing out in the Middle East, delving into each country's history, politics, economy, and religions. Having traveled through the area over the past year, she exposes firsthand the U.S.'s geopolitical moves and how our presence has affected the region's economic and political development. Topics include: · Why Iran is viewed as a threat by most Middle East countries · What resource is more important than petroleum in regional power plays · What's really behind the fighting between Sunni and Shia · How Saudi Arabia inadvertently feeds the violence in Iraq and beyond · How monarchies like those in Jordan and Qatar are more open and progressive than the so-called republics With answers that will surprise many Americans, and covering a vast history and cultural complexity that will fascinate any student of the world, What Every American Should Know About the Middle East is a must-read introduction to the most critical region of the twenty-first century.

What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running America
What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running America

Author: Melissa Rossi

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2007-05-29

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780452288201

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A guide to the politicos, money men, lobbyists, and deal makers who really run America What foreign country has the power to send America crashing into a recession? Why is the USA still dangerously dependent on oil, when viable energy alternatives have existed for decades? Who made the call that we should return to nuclear energy—and then took a high-paying position with a nuclear company? Which youth group was a spawning ground for many contemporary power mongers? What lobbyists and special-interest groups are running the show on Capitol Hill—and exactly what tools of persuasion are they using? Melissa Rossi answers these questions and more in this timely and topical guide to who’s pulling the strings behind the scenes of American politics. This latest edition of Rossi’s popular What Every American Should Know. . . series puts the spotlight on our own backyard, covering topics like: • Which groups ensure that Americans pay more for drugs than any other nation • How our immigration laws are damaging the U.S. economy • Who’s telling the school boards what your child will learn • Who really benefits from U.S. foreign policy • How corporations and government agencies are spying on us • Why we should avoid electronic voting • Who killed the electric car and who exposed it Organized by topic for easy reference, What Every American Should Know About Who’s Really Running America shows Americans what is going on behind the scenes and how they can counterbalance the influence of a small, powerful elite to put the power back where it should be—in the hands of the people.

What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running the World
What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running the World

Author: Melissa Rossi

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2005-11-29

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0452286158

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Most of us know the big players politically in the United States. But ever wonder who’s pulling their strings? Who the movers and shakers are around the globe? In sharp, witty prose, What Every American Should Know About Who’s Really Running the World spells out exactly who to watch and what they’ve done (and are still doing). Get the lowdown on: • Pfizer • Monsanto • Oprah Winfrey • WTO & IMF • Wal-Mart • Rupert Murdoch • Al Qaeda Filled with hard facts, global issues, and profiles of the heavy hitters, What Every American Should Know About Who’s Really Running the World is essential reading for all Americans who want a handle on the movers and shakers behind the headlines.

What Every American Should Know About the Rest of the World
What Every American Should Know About the Rest of the World

Author: Melissa Rossi

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2003-04-29

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1101213167

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Confused about the news? Slip out of the room when friends talk current events? Now you can keep up with ease and learn to talk like a diplomat. Among the things you’ll soon be able to slip into everyday conversation: What is the difference between Kurdistan and Kazakhstan? Why did North Korea’s leader kidnap his favorite actress? Why is Osama bin Laden so mad? Which countries still have slaves? Why is Kashmir “the most dangerous place in the world?” What country has the most Muslims? Why are they fighting in Chechnya? What little box prompted Hutus to kill Tutsis? Who is Prince Turki and how did his hunting trip change history? How are cows fueling the fighting between India's Muslims and Hindus? Which country drew maps that have resulted in the most intractable wars? What is controversial UN Resolution 242? What makes Qatar stand out? What country does Sumatran coffee come from? What country’s fakes forced the US to redesign the $100 bill? Who is the FARC and why have they been fighting for decades? An entertaining guide to political science, current events, foreign affairs, and history, What Every American Should Know about the Rest of the World gives you the vocabulary and background you need to decipher the modern world in a simple-to-understand format.

What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running the World
What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running the World

Author: Melissa Rossi

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2005-11-29

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 1440627924

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Most of us know the big players politically in the United States. But ever wonder who’s pulling their strings? Who the movers and shakers are around the globe? In sharp, witty prose, What Every American Should Know About Who’s Really Running the World spells out exactly who to watch and what they’ve done (and are still doing). Get the lowdown on: • Pfizer • Monsanto • Oprah Winfrey • WTO & IMF • Wal-Mart • Rupert Murdoch • Al Qaeda Filled with hard facts, global issues, and profiles of the heavy hitters, What Every American Should Know About Who’s Really Running the World is essential reading for all Americans who want a handle on the movers and shakers behind the headlines.

Innocent Abroad
Innocent Abroad

Author: Martin Indyk

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2009-01-06

Total Pages: 513

ISBN-13: 1416597255

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Making peace in the long-troubled Middle East is likely to be one of the top priorities of the next American president. He will need to take account of the important lessons from past attempts, which are described and analyzed here in a gripping book by a renowned expert who served twice as U.S. ambassador to Israel and as Middle East adviser to President Clinton. Martin Indyk draws on his many years of intense involvement in the region to provide the inside story of the last time the United States employed sustained diplomacy to end the Arab-Israeli conflict and change the behavior of rogue regimes in Iraq and Iran. Innocent Abroad is an insightful history and a poignant memoir. Indyk provides a fascinating examination of the ironic consequences when American naïveté meets Middle Eastern cynicism in the region's political bazaars. He dissects the very different strategies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to explain why they both faced such difficulties remaking the Middle East in their images of a more peaceful or democratic place. He provides new details of the breakdown of the Arab-Israeli peace talks at Camp David, of the CIA's failure to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and of Clinton's attempts to negotiate with Iran's president. Indyk takes us inside the Oval Office, the Situation Room, the palaces of Arab potentates, and the offices of Israeli prime ministers. He draws intimate portraits of the American, Israeli, and Arab leaders he worked with, including Israel's Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, and Ariel Sharon; the PLO's Yasser Arafat; Egypt's Hosni Mubarak; and Syria's Hafez al-Asad. He describes in vivid detail high-level meetings, demonstrating how difficult it is for American presidents to understand the motives and intentions of Middle Eastern leaders and how easy it is for them to miss those rare moments when these leaders are willing to act in ways that can produce breakthroughs to peace. Innocent Abroad is an extraordinarily candid and enthralling account, crucially important in grasping the obstacles that have confounded the efforts of recent presidents. As a new administration takes power, this experienced diplomat distills the lessons of past failures to chart a new way forward that will be required reading.

America's War for the Greater Middle East
America's War for the Greater Middle East

Author: Andrew J. Bacevich

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 0553393936

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A critical assessment of America's foreign policy in the Middle East throughout the past four decades evaluates and connects regional engagements since 1990 while revealing their massive costs.

Quicksand
Quicksand

Author: Geoffrey Wawro

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2010-04-01

Total Pages: 903

ISBN-13: 1101197684

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An unprecedented history of our involvement in the Middle East that traces our current quandaries there-in Iraq, Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, and elsewhere-back to their roots almost a century ago. Geoffrey Wawro approaches America's role in the Middle East in a fundamentally new way-by encompassing the last century of the entire region, rather than focusing narrowly on a particular country or era. The result is a definitive and revelatory history whose drama, tragedy, and rich irony he relates with unprecedented verve. Wawro combed archives in the United States and Europe and traveled the Middle East to unearth new insights into the hidden motivations, backroom dealing, and outright espionage that shaped some of the most tumultuous events of the last one hundred years. Wawro offers piercing analysis of iconic events from the birth of Israel to the death of Sadat, from the Suez crisis to the energy crisis, from the Six-Day War to Desert One, from Iran-contra to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rise of al- Qaeda. Throughout, he draws telling parallels between America's past mistakes and its current quandaries, proving that we're in today's muddle not just because of our old errors, but because we keep repeating those errors. America has juggled multiple commitments and conflicting priorities in the Middle East for nearly a century. Strands of idealism and ruthless practicality have alternated- and sometimes run together-in our policy. Quicksand untangles these strands as no history has done before by showing how our strategies unfolded over the entire century and across the entire region. We've persistently misread the intentions and motivations of every major player in the region because we've insisted on viewing them through the lens of our own culture, hopes, and fears. Most administrations since Eisenhower's have adopted their own "doctrine" for the Middle East, and almost every doctrine has failed precisely because it's a doctrine-a template into which events on the ground refuse to fit. Geoffrey Wawro's peerless and remarkably lively history is key to understanding our errors and the Middle East-at last- on its own terms.

A Choice of Enemies
A Choice of Enemies

Author: Sir Lawrence Freedman

Publisher: Anchor Canada

Published: 2011-12-14

Total Pages: 866

ISBN-13: 0307373339

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The United States is locked into three prolonged conflicts without much hope of early resolution. Iran is pursuing a nuclear program; the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has seen unrelenting intercommunal violence; and the Taliban have got back into Afghanistan. George W. Bush will almost certainly leave office without solving any of these big foreign policy issues that have defined his presidency. Sir Lawrence Freedman, distinguished historian of 20th-century military and political strategy, teases out the roots of each engagement over the last thirty years and demonstrates with clarity and scholarship the influence of these conflicts upon each other. How is it that the US manages to find itself fighting on three different fronts? Freedman supplies a context to recent events and warns against easy assumptions: neo-conservatives, supporters of Israel and the hawks are not the sole reasons for the failure to develop a viable foreign policy in the Middle East. The story is infinitely more complex and is often marked by great drama. Unique in its focus, this book will offer new revelations about the history of the US in the region, and about America’s role in the wider world. A Choice of Enemies is essential reading for anyone concerned with the complex politics of the Middle East and with the future of American foreign policy. “Freedman is not just a good historian but a terse, readable writer.” Simon Jenkins, Sunday Times (UK)

Notes on a Century
Notes on a Century

Author: Bernard Lewis

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012-05-10

Total Pages: 439

ISBN-13: 1101575239

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The #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Went Wrong? tells the story of his extraordinary life After September 11, Americans who had never given much thought to the Middle East turned to Bernard Lewis for an explanation, catapulting What Went Wrong? and later Crisis of Islam to become number one bestsellers. He was the first to warn of a coming "clash of civilizations," a term he coined in 1957, and has led an amazing life, as much a political actor as a scholar of the Middle East. In this witty memoir he reflects on the events that have transformed the region since World War II, up through the Arab Spring. A pathbreaking scholar with command of a dozen languages, Lewis has advised American presidents and dined with politicians from the shah of Iran to the pope. Over the years, he had tea at Buckingham Palace, befriended Golda Meir, and briefed politicians from Ted Kennedy to Dick Cheney. No stranger to controversy, he pulls no punches in his blunt criticism of those who see him as the intellectual progenitor of the Iraq war. Like America’s other great historian-statesmen Arthur Schlesinger and Henry Kissinger, he is a figure of towering intellect and a world-class raconteur, which makes Notes on a Century essential reading for anyone who cares about the fate of the Middle East.