In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising - an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis. Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria's tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged....

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.

When Europe's Great War engulfed the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalists rose in revolt against the Turks. The British supported the Arabs' fight for an independent state and sent an intelligence officer, T. E. Lawrence, to join Prince Faisal, leader of the Arab army and a descendant of the Prophet. In October 1918, Faisal, Lawrence, and the Arabs victoriously entered Damascus, where they declared a constitutional government in an independent Greater Syria. At the Paris Peace Conference, Faisal won the support of President Woodrow Wilson.

In this rich, fascinating history, John Ghazvinian traces the complex story of the relations between these two nations back to the Persian Empire of the 18th century - the subject of great admiration by Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams - and an America seen by Iranians as an ideal to emulate for their own government.

The American invasion of Iraq has been a success - for the Kurds. Kurdistan is an invisible nation, and the Kurds the largest ethnic group on Earth without a homeland, comprising some 25 million moderate Sunni Muslims living in the area around the borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Through a history dating back to biblical times, they have endured persecution and betrayal, surviving only through stubborn compromise with greater powers. They have always desired their own state, and now, accidentally, the United States may have helped them take a huge step toward that goal.

This book throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society.

In 2012, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was clinging to power in a vicious civil war. When intelligence revealed that the dictator might resort to using chemical weapons, Pres. Obama warned that doing so would cross “a red line”. Assad did it anyway, killing hundreds of civilians and forcing Obama to decide if he would mire America in another unpopular war. When Russia offered to broker the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons, Obama leapt at the out. So begins an electrifying race to find, remove, and destroy 1,300 tons of chemical weapons in the midst of a raging civil war.

In Israel and the West, it is called the Six Day War. In the Arab world, it is known as the June War or, simply, as "the Setback". Never has a conflict so short, unforeseen, and largely unwanted by both sides so transformed the world. The Yom Kippur War, the war in Lebanon, the Camp David accords, the controversy over Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the intifada, and the rise of Palestinian terror are all part of the outcome of those six days.

Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism is a masterly history of these chaotic, tragic and above all futile conflicts, ranging with his usual excoriating accuracy from Mali to Pakistan, from Iraq to Yemen by way of Syria and Libya. Millions are dead, disabled or languish desperately far from their homes as the direct result of our blunders, bewilderment and outright malicious stupidity.

Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members - mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists - The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age.

From the New York Times best-selling author Stephen M. Walt, The Hell of Good Intentions dissects the faults and foibles of recent American foreign policy - explaining why it has been plagued by disasters like the “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan and outlining what can be done to fix it.

This is the book the CIA does not want you to read. For the last 60 years, the CIA has maintained a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, never disclosing its blunders to the American public. It spun its own truth to the nation while reality lay buried in classified archives. Now, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Tim Weiner offers a stunning indictment of the CIA, a deeply flawed organization that has never deserved America's confidence.

A gripping history of banking and the booms and busts that shaped the world on both sides of the Atlantic, The House of Morgan traces the trajectory of the J. P.Morgan empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the crash of 1987. Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the private saga of the Morgans and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved. Based on extensive interviews and access to the family and business archives, The House of Morgan is an investigative masterpiece.

A gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism. Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington’s presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation’s largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire.

Humans are venturing up and out, and we’re taking our competitive spirit with us. Soon, what happens in space will shape human history as much the mountains, rivers, and seas have impacted civilizations around the world. It’s no coincidence that Russia, China, and the USA are leading the way. The next fifty years will change the face of global politics and the world order as we know it. In this must-listen work, bestselling author Tim Marshall navigates the new astropolitical reality to show how we got here and where we’re heading.

In 1965, the US government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the 20th century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA's secret interventions were so successful.

Until his assassination by US drone strike in January 2020, commander Qassem Soleimani was one of the most powerful men in Iran and the military spearhead for Iranian foreign policy, enacting the wishes of the country's Supreme Leader in the region. A widely popular but also feared maverick operator, he helped to establish the Islamic Republic as a major force in the Middle East, with interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. This was a long way from where he began as a youth, living on the margins in a country ruled by a monarch supported by the United States.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was a defining moment of the modern era. Its success unleashed a wave of Islamist fervor across the Middle East and signaled a sharp decline in the appeal of Western ideologies in the Islamic world. Michael Axworthy takes listeners through the major periods in Iranian history over the last 30 years: the overthrow of the old regime and the creation of the new one; the Iran-Iraq war; the reconstruction era following the war; the reformist wave led by Mohammed Khatami; and the present day, in which reactionaries have re-established control.

'Can’t you just explain the Israel situation to me? In, like, 10 minutes or less?' This is the question Daniel Sokatch is used to answering on an almost daily basis as the head of the New Israel Fund, an organization dedicated to equality and democracy for all Israelis, not just Jews. Can We Talk About Israel? is the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, grappling with a century-long struggle between two peoples that both perceive themselves as (and indeed are) victims.

Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members - mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists - The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age.

In this rich, fascinating history, John Ghazvinian traces the complex story of the relations between these two nations back to the Persian Empire of the 18th century - the subject of great admiration by Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams - and an America seen by Iranians as an ideal to emulate for their own government.

Rashid examines Central Asia, and the corridors of power in Washington and Europe, to see how the promised nation building in the region has progressed. His conclusions are devastating.

What are the possibilities—and hazards—facing America as it withdraws from Afghanistan and reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? Where is the Taliban now in both of these countries? What does the immediate future hold, and what are America’s choices going forward? These are some of the crucial questions that Ahmed Rashid—Pakistan’s preeminent journalist—takes on in this follow-up to his acclaimed Descent into Chaos.

Ukraine's sudden prominence in American politics has compounded an already-widespread misunderstanding of what is actually happening in the nation. In the American media, Ukraine has come to signify an inherently corrupt place, rather than a real country struggling in the face of great challenges. Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know addresses Ukraine's relations with the West, particularly the United States, from the perspective of Ukrainians.

In this definitive history of the modern Arab world, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan draws extensively on Arab sources and texts to place the Arab experience in its crucial historical context for the first time. Tracing five centuries of Arab history, Rogan reveals that there was an age when the Arabs set the rules for the rest of the world. Today, however, the Arab world's sense of subjection to external powers carries vast consequences for both the region and Westerners who attempt to control it.

Martin Meredith has revised this classic history to incorporate important recent developments, including the Darfur crisis in Sudan, Robert Mugabe’s continued destructive rule in Zimbabwe, controversies over Western aid and exploitation of Africa’s resources, the growing importance and influence of China, and the democratic movement roiling the North African countries of Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan.

Recalling the classic warnings against militarism, from George Washington's farewell address to Dwight Eisenhower's denunciation of the military-industrial complex, Johnson explores the trend of militarism that is bankrupting the United States and creating conditions for a new century of virulent blowback.

Martin Gilbert, author of the multivolume biography of Winston Churchill and other brilliant works of history, chronicles world events year by year, from the dawn of aviation to the flourishing technology age, taking us through World War I to the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt as president of the United States and Hider as chancellor of Germany.

The Islamic State has stunned the world with its savagery, destructiveness, and military and recruiting successes. What explains the rise of ISIS, and what does it portend for the future of the Middle East? In this book, one of the world's leading authorities on political Islam and jihadism sheds new light on these questions as he provides a unique history of the rise and growth of ISIS. Moving beyond journalistic accounts, Fawaz Gerges provides a clear and compelling account of the deeper conditions that fuel ISIS.

Once the world's bastion of liberal, democratic values, Europe is now having to confront demons it thought it had laid to rest. The old pathologies of anti-Semitism, populist nationalism, and territorial aggression are threatening to tear the European postwar consensus apart. Based on extensive firsthand reporting, this book is a provocative, disturbing look at a continent in unexpected crisis.