'For years, I tried to read every new novel about 9/11. Some were thoughtful, but I always came away unsatisfied, feeling that the authors had worked hard but had somehow fallen short. As I read the stunning first section of Peter Bergen's new book, I realised I had been looking in the wrong genre. But be warned you'll read the longest war and weep'
The Scotsman 22/2
'So the war is not over. Yet weariness of it, a change of American Leadership, the emergence of other pressing problems and a widespread suspicion that the terrorists' capability was exaggerated have made it less prominent. That makes Mr Bergen's readable and well-reported appraisal timely'
The Economist 8/2
'Bergen has, through his books, journalism and lecturing, established a reputation as one of America's foremost al-Qaida experts. Bergen, with this detailed, serious, scrupulously fair, perceptive and sometimes startling work has made a significant contribution to us doing exactly that'
The Observer 6/2
'This is a gripping and disturbing book. It reminds us that wars have a logic of their own that escapes the control of politicians and generals'
The Sunday Express 30/1
"For readers interested in a highly informed, wide-angled, single-volume briefing on the war on terror so far, The Longest War is clearly that essential book."
--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"For years, I tried to read every new novel about how 9/11 affected our lives. Some were very thoughtful, but I always came away unsatisfied, feeling that the authors had worked hard but had somehow fallen short. As I read the stunning first section of Peter L. Bergen's new book on the war between the United States and Al Qaeda, I realized I had been looking in the wrong genre. None of the novels were as effective or moving as "The Longest War," which is a history of our time. … "The Longest War" is one of the most important accounts on the subject to appear in years. But be warned: You will read it and weep."
-Thomas E. Ricks, The New York Times Book Review
"The Longest War is Mr. Bergen's magnum opus…. essential reading."
--The Washington Times
"His important history of the war on terrorism….The greatest strength of "The Longest War" is that it provides a detailed history of what has occurred since al-Qaeda first appeared on the terrorist scene. Uniquely, it tells the history from three sides: the Americans involved in prosecuting the war; ordinary Muslims, the vast majority of whom remain unmoved by bin Laden's siren call; and the many terrorists and sympathizers whom Bergen has sought out in the field or whose voluminous writings he expertly synthesizes. "The Longest War" is also a very good read."
--Jessica Stern, Washington Post
"The Longest War is ambitious both in scope and aims…you need to understand al-Qaida, and Bergen, with this detailed, serious, scrupulously fair, perceptive and sometimes startling work has made a significant contribution to us doing exactly that."
--Jason Burke, The Guardian
"The Longest War is by far the best and most comprehensive book on the conflict so far."
--Christina Lamb, Sunday Times
"A grippingly important work that belongs on the shelf alongside The Looming Tower and Ghost Wars."---The Daily Beast
The Longest War is his history of a daunting subject that succeeds where other books have failed. That's because the author was one of the few people onto al-Qaeda years before the instant experts cropped up. And he is still there watching, long after most of those so-called experts packed it in and moved on.
--Colin Freeze, The Globe and Mail
"A revelatory, pull-no-punches history of the War on Terror, from before 9/11 to the present day…One of the deepest and most disturbing investigations of one of the defining issues of our era."-Kirkus, starred review
‘Based on dozens of interviews and thousands of documents, this book is a well-researched introduction to the subject’
Daily Telegraph 19/3
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A powerful analysis of the Arab-Israeli conflict, at a critical moment, by an Israeli ex-foreign minister who is also a celebrated historian
(7)The bestselling author of No Logo shows how the global "free market" has exploited crises and shock for three decades, from Chile to Iraq
In her groundbreaking reporting over the past few years, Naomi Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism." Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment," losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers.
The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq.
At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. Klein argues that by capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years.
‘It seems to me as certain of immortality as anything written in English for half a century’ John Buchan
Cemal Kafadar offers a much more subtle and complex interpretation of the early Ottoman period than that provided by other historians. His careful analysis of medieval as well as modern historiography from the perspective of a cultural historian demonstrates how ethnic, tribal, linguistic, religious, and political affiliations were all at play in the struggle for power in Anatolia and the Balkans during the late Middle Ages. This highly original look at the rise of the Ottoman empirethe longest- lived political entity in human historyshows the transformation of a tiny frontier enterprise into a centralized imperial state that saw itself as both leader of the world's Muslims and heir to the Eastern Roman Empire.
(1)In the months leading up to March 2003, fresh from its swift and heady victory in Afghanistan, the Bush administration mobilized the United States armed forces to overthrow the government of Iraq. Eight months after the president declared an end to major combat operations, Saddam Hussein was captured in a farmhouse in Al-Dawr. And yet neither peace nor democracy has taken hold in Iraq; instead the country has plunged into terrorist insurgency and guerrilla warfare, with no end in sight. What went wrong? In The Secret History of the Iraq War, bestselling author Yossef Bodansky offers an astonishing new account of the war and its aftermath -- a war that was doomed from the start, he argues, by the massive and systemic failures of the American intelligence community. Drawing back the curtain of politicized debate, Bodansky -- a longtime expert and director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare -- reveals that nearly every aspect of America's conflict with Iraq has been misunderstood, in both the court of public opinion and the White House itself. Among his revelations:
(2)Number-one bestselling author Ken Follett tells the inspiring, true story of the Middle East hostage crisis that began in 1979, and of the unconventional means Ross Perot used to save his countrymen.
