Post September 11th

The Book Cafe has assembled the following list of books for our customers who are interested in pursuing a deeper understanding of the various global political issues that have come to the fore in the wake of the recent attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We have attempted to represent as many points of view as possible and to include analyses of the pertinent issues from many fields, including political theory, religion, military, and unconventional warfare. We have also included a selection of historical fiction celebrating the region's cultural diversity. In it, we are also offering a glimpse of the region's most celebrated novelists. It is our hope that a better understanding of the issues at hand will help to bring about a fair and equitable resolution to the present crisis. (Please note that the Book Cafe may not have all of the following titles in stock at all times. If we run out of a selected title we will be happy to order it for you.)

New Additions to our Middle East List

9-11
Noam Chomsky

9-11 contains interviews conducted with Noam Chomsky by various interviewers during the first month following the attacks of September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Chomsky's latest book,..."9-11,"... is a badly needed corrective to news coverage of the present-day "war on terrorism."
-- Norman Solomon

The Clash of Fundamentalisms : Crusades, Jihads and Modernity
Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali, editor of the New Left Review, provides a detailed, thoughtful analysis of the history that preceded the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In masterful prose, he explains both the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the new forms of equally entrenched Western colonialism, looking at each with religious and historical detail. He challenges assumptions about both the West and Islam, arguing instead that Eastern civilization has played an important role in Western modernity. Ultimately, The Clash of Fundamentalisms argues that what we have experienced now is the return of History in horrific form, with religious symbols playing a part on both sides, and it is time we all start paying real attention.

What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response
Bernard Lewis

For many centuries, the world of Islam was in the forefront of human achievement--the foremost military and economic power in the world, the leader in the arts and sciences of civilization. Christian Europe, a remote land beyond its northwestern frontier, was seen as an outer darkness of barbarism and unbelief from which there was nothing to learn or to fear. And then everything changed, as the previously despised West won victory after victory, first in the battlefield and the marketplace, then in almost every aspect of public and even private life. In this intriguing volume, Bernard Lewis examines the anguished reaction of the Islamic world as it tried to understand why things had changed--how they had been overtaken, overshadowed, and to an increasing extent dominated by the West. Lewis provides a fascinating portrait of a culture in turmoil.

Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism
John K. Cooley

To oppose the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan in 1979, the United States formed an extraordinary anti-Communist alliance with militant Islamic forces in South Asia. John Cooley describes the development of U.S. foreign policy and CIA covert activity in the 1980s, which facilitated the training and arming of almost a quarter of a million Islamic mercenaries drawn from around the world. Cooley marshals a wealth of evidence to demonstrate the devastating consequences of this alliance between the U.S. government and radical Islam--from the assassination of Sadat, the destabilization of Algeria and Chechnya and the emergence of the Taliban, to the bombings of the World Trade Center and the US embassies in Africa.

A Just Response : The Nation on Terrorism, Democracy, and September 11, 2001
by Katrina Vanden Heuvel (Editor), Jonathan Schell

"On Tuesday morning, a piece was torn out of our world. A patch of blue sky that should not have been there opened up in the New York skyline.... Our city was changed forever. Our country was changed forever. Our world was changed forever." So wrote Jonathan Schell in the first issue of The Nation magazine following September 11, 2001. In A Just Response, some of the most respected figures on the progressive left analyze the causes and consequences of this new American wound in a series of thoughtful, informed, and provocative essays. Selected from The Nation and other sources, these articles counter the bombast and jingoism of so much of the media coverage since September 11 -- while providing informed analysis, provocative commentary, and reasoned debates.

 

Striking Terror: America's New War
Robert B. Silvers (Editor), Barbara Epstein

Immediately following the recent attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., the New York Review of Books began publishing articles on how America should deal with terrorism, as well as reports from inside Afghanistan and Pakistan. Striking Terror collects the Review's timely analyses of America's most recent war with essays by Stanley Hoffman, Tony Judt, Timothy Garton Ash, and others.

 

In the Name of Osama Bin Laden : Global Terrorism & the Bin Laden Brotherhood
Roland Jacquard, Samia Serageldin (Editor), George Holoch (Translator

Jacquard details how bin Laden became an international emblem of fundamentalist, pan-Islamic, anti-U.S. fervor and the leader of a brotherhood so passionate that devotees who have never met him will act autonomously in his name. The author explains the global character of bin Laden's organization, elaborating the extent of his sphere of influence in Europe and Asia. Jacquard reveals the construction of bin Laden's networks -- including a profile of his inner circle-and their collaboration with overlapping webs of banking, drug trafficking, religious, and terrorist organizations. He considers the brotherhood's access to biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons and warns that, with or without bin Laden, this global terrorist force will remain a threat.

Al Qaeda: Brotherhood of Terror
Paul L. Williams

Al-Qaeda: Anatomy of Terror examines the network's religious roots, its widespread organizational reach (including the U.S.), its complex political and religious agenda, and its terrifying tactics. The book includes a chilling account of life within al-Qaeda that comes in part from the testimony of members of the Bin Laden group, including Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, who was arrested for staging the August 1998 suicide bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. It describes al-Qaeda's capabilities of acts of mass destruction, including stockpiles of radiological weapons. It is impossible to understand the present situation without also understanding the often violent history of Islam and its factions. Al-Qaeda: Anatomy of Terror covers not only the social, political, and economic factors that have led to the creation of this elusive terrorist network, but also uncovers its religious roots in fundamentalist interpretations of the Koran and the widespread support for those interpretations among radical Islamic groups worldwide

How Did This Happen? Terrorism and the New War
Gideon Rose (Editor), James F. Hoge Jr. (Editor)

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, one question has been on the mind of every American: "How did this happen?" Public Affairs and Foreign Affairs have come together to publish a book that seeks to answer this question in all its critical aspects: the motives and actions of the terrorists, the status of our military, the context of the Middle East, airport security, diplomatic pressures. The book provides readers with an authoritative but accessible account of the issues that led to the present crisis--not as a symposium of opinion, but as a series of narratives on different aspects of the situation, providing perspective, information, and sound interpretation. How Did This Happen? brings together such noted experts as Fouad Ajami, Karen Armstrong, Richard Butler, Samuel R. Berger, Wesley K. Clark, William J. Perry, Alan Wolfe, and Fareed Zakaria to help make the events of that terrible day more understandable, even as we steel ourselves for actions yet to come.

 

Terrorism: Theirs and Ours
Eqbal Ahmad, David Barsamian, Greg Ruggiero

President Reagan called Afghanistan's mujahedeen "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers." Thirteen years later, they were on America's hit list. This thoughtful primer examines the role of politics in America's foreign policy.

 

 

Terrorism and War (Open Media Pamphlet Series)
Howard Zinn, Anthony Arnove

In Terrorism and War, Howard Zinn shows that while truth is indeed the first casualty of war, there are other casualties as well including civil liberties on the home front and human rights abroad. He also explores the history of U.S. militarism and the long tradition of Americans' resistance to it, from Eugene Debs during World War I to the opponents of military intervention in Afghanistan today.

Middle Eastern History

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
David Fromkin

The Middle East has long been a battleground of rival religions, ideologies, nationalisms, and dynasties. All of these conflicts -- including the hostilities between Arabs and Israelis that have flared up yet again -- stem from its political inheritance: the arrangements, unities, and divisions imposed upon the region by the Allies after the First World War. In A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin reveals how and why the Allies came to remake the geography and politics of the Middle East, drawing lines on an empty map that eventually became the new countries of Iraq, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon. Focusing on the formative years of 1914 to 1922, when everything -- even an alliance between Arab nationalism and Zionism -- seemed possible, Fromkin raises questions about what might have been done differently and answers questions about why things were done as they were. The current battle for a Palestinian homeland has its roots in these events of eighty-five years ago.

Jihad vs McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World
Benjamin R. Barber

Jihad vs. McWorld is a groundbreaking work, an elegant and illuminating analysis of the central conflict of our times: consumerist capitalism versus religious and tribal fundamentalism. These diametrically opposed but strangely intertwined forces are tearing apart--and bringing together--the world as we know it, undermining democracy and the nation-state on which it depends. On the one hand, consumer capitalism on the global level is rapidly dissolving the social and economic barriers between nations, transforming the world's diverse populations into a blandly uniform market. On the other hand, ethnic, religious, and racial hatreds are fragmenting the political landscape into smaller and smaller tribal units. Jihad vs. McWorld is the term that distinguished writer and political scientist Benjamin R. Barber has coined to describe the powerful and paradoxical interdependence of these forces

The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years
Bernard Lewis

In a sweeping and vivid survey, renowned historian Bernard Lewis charts the history of the Middle East over the last 2,000 years, from the birth of Christianity through the modern era, focusing on the successive transformations that have shaped it. Elegantly written, scholarly yet accessible, The Middle East is the most comprehensive single volume history of the region ever written from the world's foremost authority on the Middle East.

 

Peace and Its Discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process
Edward W. Said

Ever since Yasir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn, Israel and the Palestinian people have been engaged in what commentators persist in calling "the peace process". Yet Israel remains racked by violence and continuing land seizures, and Palestinians are more demoralized than ever before. Now in this probing and impassioned book, one of our foremost Palestinian-American intellectuals explains why the much-vaunted process has yet to produce peace - and is unlikely to as presently constituted. Whether Edward Said is addressing the fatal flaws in the PLO's bargain, denouncing fundamentalists on both sides of the religious divide, or calling our attention to the distortions in official coverage of the Arab world, he offers insights beyond the conventional wisdom and a sympathy that extends to both Israelis and Palestinians. He does so with an incisiveness, clarity, and fairness that make Peace and Its Discontents essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of the Middle East.

 

Fateful Triangle : The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians
by Noam Chomsky, Edward W. Said

Since its original publication in 1983, Chomsky's seminal tome on Mideast politics has become a classic in the fields of political science and Mideast affairs. For its tenth printing, Chomsky has written a new introduction and added a foreword by Edward Said. This new, updated edition highlights the book's lasting relevance, and should be a treasure for fans of the first edition, and an eye-opener for those new to the work. It is invaluable to anyone seeking to understand the Middle East.

Dream Palace of the Arabs
Fouad Ajami

The generation of Arabs whose odyssey is chronicled in this timely and eloquent work is Ajami's own--men and women who came of age in the late 1950s. Through an intriguing body of Arabic material, including fiction, poetry, memoirs, and social and political commentaries, Ajami explores the complex world of this generation of Arab writers, heirs to an "intellectual edifice of secular nationalism and modernity," whose inheritance has been thwarted. Four distinct and artfully crafted narratives take an unflinching and nonjudgmental look at the intricacies of the Arab world's internal and external relationships: "The Suicide of Khalil Hawi" goes beyond the life of this Lebanese poet to explore wider issues of the times in historical context; "In the Shape of the Ancestors" tells of the rupturing of secular tradition that came with the theocratic politics of the eighties; "In the Land of Egypt" chronicles this stoic country's seemingly endless quest for deliverance; and "The Orphaned Peace" examines the Arab intellectual encounter with Israel. Born and raised in Lebanon, Ajami is an award-winning authority on the Middle East.

Warriors of God : Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade
James Reston

James Reston, Jr., the author of Galileo: A Life (called "masterful" and "brilliant" by the Washington Post) and the critically lauded The Last Apocalypse, a stunningly original portrait of the Christian world at the turn of first millennium, now re-creates the collision of the Christian holy wars and the Muslim jihad at the end of the twelfth century. A dual biography of the legendary Richard the Lionheart and the Sultan Saladin, iconic hero of the Islamic world, Warriors of God recounts the life of each man and reveals the passions of the times that brought them face-to-face in the final battle of the Third Crusade.

 

Righteous Victims: A History of the Arab-Zionist Conflict
Benny Morris

Righteous Victims, by the noted historian Benny Morris, is a comprehensive and objective history of the long battle between Arabs and Jews for possession of a land they both call home. With great clarity of vision, Professor Morris finds the roots of this conflict in the deep religious, ethnic, and political differences between the Zionist immigrants and the native Arab population of Palestine. He describes the gradual influx of Jewish settlers, which was eventually fiercely resisted by the Arabs during the decades of British Mandatory government following World War I.

Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Norman G. Finkelstein

First published in 1995, this polemical study challenges generally accepted truths of the Israel-Palestine conflict as well as much of the revisionist literature. This new edition critically re-examines dominant popular and scholarly images in the light of the current failures of the peace process.

"The most revealing study of the historical background of the conflict."
-- Noam Chomsky, The Guardian
"Anyone interested in seeing justice brought to the Middle East must read this book."
-- Charles Glass, former ABC Middle East Correspondent
"Here is a book not to be missed."
-- Le Monde Diplomatique

Eastward to Tartary : Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus
Robert D. Kaplan, Jason Epstein (Editor)
Kaplan takes us on a spellbinding journey into the heart of a volatile region, stretching from Hungary and Romania to the far shores of the oil-rich Caspian Sea. Through dramatic stories of unforgettable characters, Kaplan illuminates the tragic history of this unstable area that he describes as the new fault line between East and West. He ventures from Turkey, Syria, and Israel to the turbulent countries of the Caucasus, from the newly rich city of Baku to the deserts of Turkmenistan and the killing fields of Armenia. The result is must reading for anyone concerned about the state of our world in the decades to come.

Arab World : Personal Encounters
Robert Fernea and Elizabeth Warnock Fernea
Although published a number of years ago, 1985, this award-winning volume offers a vivid human portrait of daily life in the Arab countries, based on three decades of personal experience. It provocatively examines the changes that have taken place there since the 1950s and clarifies for the Western reader a scene laden with conflict, civil war, and profound change that is often misunderstood.

One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate
Tom Segev

Segev explores the dramatic period before the creation of the state, when Britain ruled over "one Palestine, complete" (as noted in the receipt signed by the High Commissioner) and when its promise to both Jews and Arabs that they would inherit the land set in motion the conflict that haunts the region to this day. Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials, Segev reconstructs a tumultuous era (1917 to 1948) of limitless possibilities and tragic missteps. He introduces the legendary figures -- General Allenby, Lawrence of Arabia, David Ben-Gurion -- as well as an array of pioneers, secret agents, diplomats, and fanatics. He tracks the steady advance of Jews and Arabs toward confrontation and with his hallmark originality puts forward a radical new argument: the British, far from being pro-Arab, as commonly thought, consistently favored the Zionist position, and did so out of the mistaken and anti-Semitic belief that Jews turned the wheels of history.

Palestinian Refugees : The Right of Return
by Naseer Hasan Aruri (Editor)

With major contributions from a range of international experts, including Edward W. Said, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappe and Alain Grosh, this volume examines the Palestinians' right of return. Chapters cover the historical roots of the Palestinian refugee question; the rights of the refugees under international law; the special case of Lebanon; Israeli perceptions of the refugee question; the practical feasibility of the return; the role of the United States and the European Community and the Refugee Question; the value of the refugee property; the principles of compensation; and a program for an Independent Rights Campaign.

Palestinian Identity
Rashid Khalidi

An impressively thoughtful, layered, and well documented study of key aspects of the evolution of modern Palestinian nationalism. Those expecting either a comprehensive history of the modern Palestinian movement or a polemic against Zionism and Israel should look elsewhere. Khalidi, who teaches history and directs the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago, and who was a member of the Palestinian delegation to the Mideast peace negotiations, focuses almost entirely on the late Ottoman and early Mandate period (1880s through 1920s). He sees Palestinian nationalism emerging far earlier than is generally thought--in the preWW I period, when absentee landlords in Beirut and elsewhere sold large tracts of Palestinian land to the Jewish Colonization Association. Yet while modern Palestinian history is inextricably intertwined with that of Zionism, Khalidi focuses as much on other constituents of modern Palestinian identity, which include "patriotic feelings, local loyalties, Arabism, religious sentiments, [and] higher levels of education and literacy." He demonstrates how the long-term influence of modernization, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and concomitant European incursion in the preWW I era, followed by the betrayal of promises made by both the British and French, contributed as much to Palestinian nationalism as the 1917 Balfour Declaration and Zionist immigration.

Separate and Unequal: The inside Story of Israeli Rule in East Jerusalem
Amir S. Cheshin, Bill Hutman, Avi Melamed

This vivid behind-the-scenes account of Israeli rule in Jerusalem details for the first time the Jewish state's attempt to lay claim to all of Jerusalem, even when that meant implementing harsh policies toward the city's Arab population. The authors, Jerusalemites from the spheres of politics, journalism, and the military, have themselves been players in the drama that has unfolded in east Jerusalem in recent years and appears now to be at a climax. They have also had access to a wide range of official documents that reveal the making and implementation of Israeli policy toward Jerusalem. Their book discloses the details of Israel's discriminatory policies toward Jerusalem Arabs and shows how Israeli leaders mishandled everything from security and housing to schools and sanitation services, to the detriment of not only the Palestinian residents but also Israel's own agenda.

 

The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran
Robin Wright

Robin Wright has reported from over 120 countries for many leading news organizations, but her perceptive coverage of Iran has garnered her the most respect and praise among her colleagues. In The Last Great Revolution, Wright meticulously describes the ongoing transformation of society, politics and religion that ranges from the empowerment of women to the blossoming of a movie industry and an independent press. She demonstrates why Iran's Islamic revolution equals the French and Russian revolutions in new ideas and impact, while standing alone as "the last great revolution" of the modern era.

Iraq Under Siege
Anthony Arnove
Iraqi children are totally innocent of oil power politics. All those who prevent the lifting of sanctions, including Madeleine Albright, are not. One line disclaimers of responsibility may appear suavely diplomatic, but the children are dead and we have seen them dying. According to the UN itself, they died as a direct result of the embargo on commerce with Iraq. Many United Nations members favored significantly easing these sanctions. The US government and Madeleine Albright as its spokesperson prevented that from happening. This economic embargo continues warfare against Iraq, a silent war in which only the weakest, most vulnerable and innocent non-combatant civilians-women, children and families-continue to suffer. -- excerpted from Iraq Under Siege

Informative Links Local writer, Michael Wolfe, on Being Muslim in America Interview with Bin Laden Reliefweb Christian Science Monitor Foreign Affairs Foreign Policy The Atlantic AL Daily - A great source for magazine, and newspaper links Afghan Daily Pakistan Daily World News BBC The Guardian Pub Weekly - Four Poems compiled by Robert Pinsky Ref Desk Resources for parents and children

Religion

Beyond Belief
V. S. Naipaul

Fourteen years after the publication of his landmark travel narrative Among the Believers, V. S. Naipaul returned to the four non-Arab Islamic countries he reported on so vividly at the time of Ayatollah Khomeini's triumph in Iran. Beyond Belief is the result of his five-month journey in 1995 through Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia--lands where descendants of Muslim converts live at odds with indigenous traditions, and where dreams of Islamic purity clash with economic and political realities.

 

Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World
Edward W. Said

From the Iranian hostage crisis through the Gulf War and the bombing of the World Trade Center, the American news media have portrayed "Islam" as a monolithic entity, synonymous with terrorism and religious hysteria. In this classic work, now updated, the author of Culture and Imperialism reveals the hidden agendas and distortions of fact that underlie even the most "objective" coverage of the Islamic world.

Battle for God
Karen Armstrong

In our supposedly secular age governed by reason and technology, fundamentalism has emerged as an overwhelming force in every major world religion. Why? This is the fascinating, disturbing question that bestselling author Karen Armstrong addresses in her brilliant new book The Battle for God. Writing with the broad perspective and deep understanding of human spirituality that won huge audiences for A History of God, Armstrong illuminates the spread of militant piety as a phenomenon peculiar to our moment in history.

Islam: A Short History
Karen Armstrong

No religion in the modern world is as feared and misunderstood as Islam. It haunts the popular Western imagination as an extreme faith that promotes authoritarian government, female oppression, civil war, and terrorism. Karen Armstrong's short history offers a vital corrective to this narrow view. The distillation of years of thinking and writing about Islam, it demonstrates that the world's fastest-growing faith is a much richer and more complex phenomenon than its modern fundamentalist strain might suggest.

Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence
Mark Juergensmeyer

Beneath the histories of religious traditions--from biblical wars to crusading ventures and great acts of martyrdom--violence has lurked as a shadowy presence. Images of death have never been far from the heart of religion's power to stir the imagination. In this wide-ranging and erudite book, Mark Juergensmeyer asks one of the most important and perplexing questions of our age: why do religious people commit violent acts in the name of their god, taking the lives of innocent victims and terrorizing entire populations? This, the first comparative study of religious terrorism, explores incidents such as the World Trade Center explosion in 1997, Hamas suicide bombings, the Tokyo subway nerve gas attack, and the killing of abortion clinic doctors in the United States.

Islam in the World
Malise Ruthven

This valuable introductory guide provides a complete and lively summary of Islam in which the quest for spiritual fulfilment is inevitably bound up with political aspirations. Malise Ruthven presents a full overview of the religion in its historical, geographic, and social settings.

The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality
John Esposito
This is the third edition of John Esposito's highly-regarded book on the challenge that the Islamic revival poses for the West. The new edition is thoroughly updated and contains new material on current affairs in Turkey, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Southeast Asia, as well as a discussion of international terrorism.

Al-Qur'an: A Contemporary Translation
Ahmed Ali
This bilingual edition of the Qur'an, the Holy Book of Islam, was first published in the United States in 1988. Ahmed Ali, the distinguished Pakistani novelist, poet, critic, and diplomat, presents this elegant and poetic translation in a contemporary and living voice. On each page, the original Arabic and the translated English sit side by side, encouraging the reader to draw from both texts. Professor Ali also includes notes where necessary, providing the full meaning of each word and phrase. This accessible volume is truly essential for both scholars and followers of Islam.

A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country" Has Become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation
Diana L. Eck

How Americans of all faiths and beliefs can engage with one another to shape a positive pluralism is one of the essential questions -- perhaps the most important facing American society. While race has been the dominant American social issue in the past century, religious diversity in our civil and neighborly lives is emerging, mostly unseen, as the great challenge of the twenty-first century. Diana Eck brilliantly analyzes these developments in the richest and most readable investigation of American society since Robert Bellah's classic, The Habits of the Heart. What Eck gives us in A New Religious America is a portrait of the diversity of religion in modern America, complete with engaging characters, fascinating stories, the tragedy of misunderstanding and hatred, and the hope of new friendships, offering a road map to guide us all in the richly diverse America of the twenty-first century.

God has 99 Names
Judith Miller

God Has Ninety-Nine Names is a gripping, authoritative account of the epic battle between modernity and militant Islam that is is reshaping the Middle East.
Judith Miller, a reporter who has covered the Middle east for twenty years, takes us inside the militant Islamic movements in ten countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Algeria, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Isreal and Iran. She shows that just as there is no unified Arab world, so there is no single Islam: the movements are as different as the countries in which they are rooted.

Shattering the Myth: Islam Beyond Violence
Bruce Lawrence

Bruce Lawrence's excellent analysis of Islam today brings together socioeconomic, historical, political, and religious elements, and sets these against the backdrop of global capitalism and high technology. Shattering the Myth is an extremely well argued, well developed and well documented book that serves as a basis for further studies of Islam.

The World's Religions
Huston Smith

Originally titled The Religions of Man, this completely revised and updated edition of Smith's masterpiece, now with an engaging new foreword, explores the essential elements and teachings of the world's predominant faiths, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and the native traditions of the Americas, Australia, Africa, and Oceania. Emphasizing the inner -- rather than institutional -- dimensions of these religions, Smith devotes special attention to Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, Sufism, and the teachings of Jesus. He convincingly conveys the unique appeal and gifts of each of the traditions and reveals their hold on the human heart and imagination.

Enemy in the Mirror
Roxanne Leslie Euben

A comparison between Islamic fundamentalism and various Western critiques of rationalism yields formerly uncharted connections between Western and Islamic political thought, allowing the author to reclaim an understanding of political theory as inherently comparative. Her arguments focus on broad questions about the methods Westerners employ to understand movements and ideas that presuppose nonrational, transcendent truths. Euben finds that first, political theory can play a crucial role in understanding concrete political phenomena often considered beyond its jurisdiction; second, the study of such phenomena tests the scope of Western rationalist categories; and finally, that Western political theory can be enriched by exploring non-Western perspectives on fundamental debates about coexistence.

The Essential Sufism
James Fadiman (Editor), Robert Frager (Editor), Huston Smith, Clifton Fadiman

The definitive compendium of Sufi wisdom, Essential Sufism, draws together more than three hundred fables, poems, and prayers that reveal the luminous spirit of Islamic mysticism. Selected works from ancient prophets and sages to contemporary Sufi poets and teachers -- including , Ibn, Arabi, al-Ghazzali, Hafiz, Attar, and, of course, the enduringly popular Rumi -- make up a delectable feast of writings that will be as treasured by Sufi devotees as it will stir the souls of newcomers to this mystical, passionate faith.

Afghanistan

Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
Ahmed Rashid

Correspondent Ahmed Rashid brings the shadowy world of the Taliban-the world's most extreme and radical Islamic organization-into sharp focus in this enormously insightful book. He offers the only authoritative account of the Taliban available to English-language readers, explaining the Taliban's rise to power, its impact on Afghanistan and the region, its role in oil and gas company decisions, and the effects of changing American attitudes toward the Taliban. He also describes the new face of Islamic fundamentalism and explains why Afghanistan has become the world center for international terrorism.

Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan
Michael Griffin

Investigative journalist Michael Griffin offers a fascinating eyewitness picture drawn from three extensive trips to Afghanistan. He paints the fullest picture yet of the Taliban movement, its origins, beliefs, religious and political ethos, and the character and impact of its particular brand of fundamentalism. In the process he reveals the controversial nature of the Taliban's links with the CIA, Saudi Arabia and other vested interests. Who is to blame for the present situation? What conspiracies and collusions led to this pass? The author's conclusion reveals his view of where the "smoking gun" is pointed.

Afghanistan's Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban
Larry P. Goodson

Going beyond the stereotypes of Kalashnikov-wielding Afghan mujahideen and black-turbaned Taliban fundamentalists, Larry Goodson explains in this concise analysis of the Afghan war what has really been happening in Afghanistan in the last 20 years, and why the future of Afghanistan matters. Beginning with the reasons behind Afghanistan's inability to forge a strong state--its myriad cleavages along ethnic, religious, social, and geographical fault lines--Goodson then examines the devastating course of the war itself. He charts its utter destruction of the country, from the deaths of more than 2 million Afghans and the dispersal of some 6 million others as refugees to the complete collapse of its economy, which today had been replaced by opium poppies and heroin production. The Taliban, some of whose leaders Goodson interviewed as recently as 1997, now uneasily control roughly 80 percent of the country but themselves show increasing discord along ethnic and political lines. What happens in Afghanistan in the future will continue to affect stability and security in an increasingly important region of the post-Cold War world.

Unexpected Light : Travels in Afghanistan
by Jason Elliot

This extraordinary debut is an account of Elliot's two visits to Afghanistan. The first occurred when he joined the mujaheddin circa 1979 and was smuggled into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan; the second happened nearly ten years later, when he returned to the still war-torn land. The skirmishes that Elliot painstakingly describes here took place between the Taliban and the government of Gen. Ahmad Shah Massoud in Kabul. Today, the Taliban are in power, but Elliot's sympathies clearly lie with Massoud. Although he thought long and hard before abandoning his plan to travel to Hazara territory, where "not a chicken could cross that pass without being fired on," Elliot traveled widely in the hinterland, visiting Faizabad in the north and Herat in the west. The result is some of the finest travel writing in recent years. With its luminous descriptions of the people, the landscape (even when pockmarked by landmines), and Sufism, this book has all the hallmarks of a classic, and it puts Elliot in the same league as Robert Byron and Bruce Chatwin. Enthusiastically recommended for all travel collections.

Terrorism

Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War
Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, William J. Broad

Based on hundreds of interviews with scientists and senior officials, including President Clinton, as well as on recently declassified documents and on-site reporting from the former Soviet Union's sinister bio-weapons labs, Germs shows us bio-warriors past and present at work at their trade. There is the American scientist who devoted his professional life to perfecting biological weapons and the Nobel laureate who helped pioneer the new biology of genetically modified germs and is now trying to stop its misuse. We meet former Soviet scientists who made enough plague, smallpox, and anthrax to kill everyone on Earth and whose expertise is now in great demand by terrorists, rogue states, and legitimate research labs alike.

Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America
Yossef Bodansky

Shortly after terrorists led by Osama bin Laden attacked the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered retaliatory missile strikes against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. It was the first time the United States had responded to an individual terrorist with such overwhelming military force. Bin Laden, of course, is no run-of-the-mill rabble-rouser; Clinton called him "perhaps the preeminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today." That's quite a label for someone who, as biographer Yossef Bodansky describes, "lives with his four wives and some fifteen children in a small cave in eastern Afghanistan" without running water. Yet he is "a principal player in a tangled and sinister web of terrorism-sponsoring states, intelligence chieftains, and master terrorists." Remarkably little is known about the man; as Bodansky reveals, even the year of bin Laden's birth is uncertain. This book, then, is more than the story of a single terrorist. It's a description of a whole movement waging a jihad--holy war--against the United States in the belief that America's modernizing influence on Arab nations thwarts Islamic fundamentalist goals.

The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism
Simon Reeve

Drawing on unpublished reports, interrogation files, interviews with senior FBI agents, intelligence sources and government figures including Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistani Prime Minister, Simon Reeve gives a harrowing account of Yousef's bombings of the New York World Trade Center, offering insight into his background, and detailing the FBI's man-hunt to catch him. Reeve explains how Yousef was one of bin Laden's first operatives and documents bin Laden's life and emergence as the leader of a potent terrorist organization.
Highly detailed and yet immensely readable, The New Jackals sheds new light on two of the world's most notorious terrorists. Reeve warns that Yousef and bin Laden are just the first of a new breed of terrorist, men with no restrictions on mass killing. He also offers evidence that bin Laden's organization may already have chemical and nuclear weapons and explains why the world could soon face attacks by terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

Holy War: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden
Peter Bergen
Will be released early November

One of only a handful of Western journalists to have interviewed the world's most wanted man face to face, Peter Bergen has produced the definitive book on the Jihadist network that operates globally and in secrecy. In the course of four years of investigative reporting, he has interviewed scores of insiders -- from bin Laden associates and family members to Taliban leaders to CIA officials -- and traveled to Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom to learn the truth about bin Laden's al Queda organization and his mission.

Also of Interest

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
Chalmers Johnson

The term "blowback," invented by the CIA, refers to the unintended consequences of American policies. In this incisive and controversial book, Chalmers Johnson lays out in vivid detail the dangers faced by our overextended empire, which insists on projecting its military power to every corner of the earth and using American capital and markets to force global economic integration on its own terms. From a case of rape by U.S. servicemen in Okinawa to our role in Asia's financial crisis, from our early support for Saddam Hussein to our actions in the Balkans, Johnson reveals the ways in which our misguided policies are planting the seeds of future disaster.

American Muslims: The New Generation
Asma Gull Hasan

Twenty-five-year-old Asma Hasan calls herself "a Muslim feminist cowgirl" (she was raised in Pueblo, Colorado). Convinced that Muslim Americans are "the victims of mistaken identity", Hasan breaks through the stereotypes and generalizations to talk about the religion and the believers she knows from the inside. While the book provides a lot of basic information about Islam in America - the major tenets, the different sects, the various ethnic groups, including African Americans - the major emphasis is on the sheer normalcy of American Muslims. Like other Americans, they are very keen on family values, religious freedom, and the opportunities the U.S. has always afforded new immigrants.

Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women
Geraldine Brooks

During her six years covering the Middle East for The Wall Street Journal, Brooks sought to find out how Muslim women feel about their societies' attitudes toward women. What she discovered is sometimes astonishing, sometimes shocking, but always fascinating. Taking on the hijab (the Muslim woman's black veil) herself, Brooks talked with women throughout the Islamic world, reexamined the Koran, spent time with fundamentalist and feminist alike, and emerged with a deeper understanding of the religion as one that once empowered but now cripples women.

Lost on Earth : Nomads of the New World
Mark Fritz

In Lost on Earth Pulizer Prize winning foreign correspondent Mark Fritz intimately tells the tale of an epic moment in history. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, millions of people have been forced to flee their homes and countries. The great migration has overwhelmed the United Nations, forced the United States into distant wars, triggered tough new immigration laws, and laid the foundation for future conflicts. But LOST ON EARTH is more than recent history; through stunning journalism and expert analysis, Fritz leads us into the twilight world of contemporary refugees as they trek across landscapes that are continually being reshaped by the aftershocks of the end of the Cold War.

Body of Secrets : Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency from the Cold War Through the Dawn of a New Century
James Bamford

A no-holds-barred examination of the National Security Agency packed with startling secrets about its past, newsbreaking revelations about its present day activities, and chilling predictions about its future powers and reach. The NSA is the largest, most secretive, and most powerful intelligence agency in the world. With a staff of thirty-eight thousand people, it dwarfs the CIA in budget, manpower, and influence. Recent headlines have linked it to the economic espionage throughout Europe and to the ongoing hunt for the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

Unspeakable Truths : Confronting State Terror and Atrocity
by Priscilla B. Hayner

This book is a profound exploration of truth commissions around the world and the anguish, injustice, and the legacy of hate they are meant to absolve. Hayner examines twenty major truth commissions established around the world paying special attention to South Africa, El Salvador, Argentina, Chile, and Guatemala.

 

Humanity
Jonathon Glover
This important book confronts the brutal history of the twentieth century to unravel the psychological mystery of why so many atrocities occurred--the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Gulag, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and others--and how we can prevent their recurrence. Jonathan Glover finds disturbing similarities in the psychology of those involved with atrocities, yet offers hope that the development of a political and personal moral imagination can empower us to resist all acts of cruelty.

 

By Order of the President : FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans
Greg Robinson

Robinson traces FDR's outlook back to his formative years and to the early twentieth century's racialist view of ethnic Japanese in America as immutably "foreign" and threatening. These prejudicial sentiments, along with his constitutional philosophy and leadership style, contributed to Roosevelt's approval of the unprecedented mistreatment of American citizens. His hands-on participation and interventions were critical in determining the nature, duration, and consequences of the administration's internment policy. By Order of the President attempts to explain how a great humanitarian leader and his advisors, who were fighting a war to preserve democracy, could have implemented such a profoundly unjust and undemocratic policy toward their own people. It reminds us of the power of a president's beliefs to influence and determine public policy and of the need for citizen vigilance to protect the rights of all against potential abuses.

Fiction

Leo Africanus
by Amin Maalouf, Peter Sluglett (Translator)

Exile and pilgrimage, the power of sexual love and family bonds, the savagery of war, and the profundity of religious passions are masterfully evoked in this tale of one man's journey, set against the splendor of the Renaissance and the vast tapestry of Muslim and Christian empires.

Train to Pakistan
Khushwant Singh

Khushwant Singh, one of India's most widely read and celebrated authors, makes his readers share the individual problems of loyalty and responsibility faced by the principal figures in a little village on the frontier between India and Pakistan where the action takes place. In the summer of 1947, a train full of dead Sikhs stirs up a battlefield in the peaceful atmosphere of love and loyalty between the Muslims and the Sikhs. It is then left to Juggat Singh-the village gangster who is in love with a Muslim girl- to redeem himself by saving many Muslim lives in a stirring climax.

In the Eye of the Sun
Ahdaf Soueif

Set amidst the turmoil of contemporary Middle Eastern politics, this vivid and highly-acclaimed novel by an Egyptian journalist is an intimate look into the lives of Arab women today. Here, a woman who grows up among the Egyptian elite, marries a Westernized husband, and, while pursuing graduate study, becomes embroiled in a love affair with an uncouth Englishman.

Moth Smoke
Mohsin Hamid

When Daru loses his job as a banker in Lahore, he begins a long fall from grace that cascades the length of this lively and inventive tale. Too clever for his own good, he descends into drug dealing, then heroin addiction. Unable to pay the electricity bill, he rapidly loses power, literally and metaphorically, in a society increasingly polarized between decadent haves and discontented have-nots. As Daru spirals downward, he is falling for beautiful, mysterious Mumtaz, the wife of his childhood friend and rival, Ozi. Privileged but restless, Mumtaz escapes the constraints of marriage and motherhood by prowling the city's depths as a journalist. Daru is drawn to her with an intensity that mimics the attraction of moths to candle flames in his darkened apartment. Desperate to reverse his fortunes, Daru takes a partner in crime, the rickshaw driver Murad, but when a heist goes awry, Daru finds himself on trial for a murder he may or may not have committed. The uncertainty of his future mirrors that of his country, which is locked in a jittery nuclear test-for-test with India, as the rich get richer and fundamentalist fervor intensifies. With its assured voice -- in equal measure funny, ironic, and impassioned -- highly original cast of characters, and sly satire, this debut novel is never less than riveting.

Ali and Nino
Kurban Said

It is the eve of World War I in Baku, Azerbaijan, a city on the edge of the Caspian Sea, poised precariously between east and west. Ali Khan Shirvanshir, a Muslim schoolboy from a proud, aristocratic family, has fallen in love with the beautiful and enigmatic Nino Kipiani, a Christian girl with distinctly European sensibilities. To be together they must overcome blood feud and scandal, attempt a daring horseback rescue, and travel from the bustling street of oil-boom Baku, through starkly beautiful deserts and remote mountain villages, to the opulent palace of Ali's uncle in neighboring Persia. Ultimately the lovers are drawn back to Baku, but when war threatens their future, Ali is forced to choose between his loyalty to the beliefs of his Asian ancestors and his profound devotion to Nino. Combining the exotic fascination of a tale told by Scheherazade with the range and magnificence of an epic, Ali and Nino is a timeless classic of love in the face of war.

Cry of the Peacock
Gina Barkhordar Nahai

Against the backdrop of two hundred years of history, Cry of the Peacock traces the story of a Jewish woman caught in the turmoil of twentieth-century Iran. Told in a series of wondrous linked tales that weave a rich and epic tapestry, it is a magical journey inside the Iranian nation and its people. For the first time in any Western language this story of Iranian Jews offers an insider's glimpse into one of the most critical parts of the world today.

Children

Gleam and Glow
Eve Bunting Ill., Peter Sylvada

It's too dangerous to stay any longer-the war is coming closer. Viktor, little Marina, and Mama must pack what they can carry and flee their home. As they trudge beside the other refugees, Viktor worries about what lies ahead, and what he's left behind -- his room, his books, the fish Marina loves so much. Even worse, his papa is off fighting with the Liberation Army and doesn't know they've left home. How will Papa ever find them now? Inspired by real events, master storyteller Eve Bunting recounts the harrowing yet hopeful story of a family, a war-and a dazzling discovery.

 

Feathers and Fools
Mem Fox, Nicholas Wilton (Illustrator), Nicholas Wilson (Illustrator), Deborah Halverson (Editor)

The battle of the birds makes clear that the origins of a conflict may be absurd compared to the ravages of war. The peacocks and the swans share the same pond peacefully, until the differences between them create tension. When the peacocks note that swans can swim and fly, they irrationally fear that they might be forced to swim and fly, too, and prepare to defend themselves. The swans hear the peacocks' talk of fighting and become frightened enough to develop their own tools of war. When a swan flying overhead is mistaken for an aggressor, the war, once launched, lasts until every bird is dead. Fox offers an optimistic ending: the next generation of swan and peacock hatchlings note their similarities instead of differences.

Why Do They Hate Me?
Holliday, Laurel

True stories...
Real voices...

From the centuries-old enmities of Northern Ireland, to the Holocaust and World War II, to the Israel-Palestine conflict, young people share their innermost secrets of growing up.

"The Intifada -- that was the start of my grown-up life....The echoes, the ghosts, and the voices make me wonder: will I ever be able to forgive and forget? Will time ever bury such a tragedy and help me to start over again as a normal human being?"
-- Ghareeb, the West Bank

"The day for deportation arrived. We knew our end was near."
-- Janina Heshele, Poland

"I'm not allowed to go out with Neil, but the attraction is there between us. I realize that here in Northern Ireland relationships between Catholics and Protestants are strained. But should religion affect how you view a person?"
-- Lisa Burrows, Northern Ireland

On these pages they vividly record their experiences and offer eyewitness accounts of fear and courage, tragedy and triumph.

 

When Dinosaurs Die: A Guide to Understanding Death
Laurie Brown (Little, Brown, HC $14.95; PB $7.95)

Ages 5-8. Unlike many books on death for little ones, this one doesn't tell a story. Instead, it addresses children's fears and curiosity head-on, and in a largely secular fashion, by answering some very basic questions: "Why does someone die?" "What does dead mean?" "What comes after death?" Other questions deal with emotions, and there's a section about death customs (the weakest part of the book). The forthright approach makes the subject seem less mysterious and provides kids with plenty to think about and discuss with their parents. It's the brightly colored artwork, however, that will really enable children to relax with the concept. The pictures are filled with homey clutter and familiar detail, and the activities of the appealingly quirky characters (who resemble dinosaurs in only the broadest way) add a strong, comforting sense of what can only be called normalcy.

New York

Divided We Stand
Eric Darton

When the World Trade Towers in New York City were erected at the Hudson's edge, they led the way to a real estate boom that was truly astonishing. Divided We Stand reveals the coming together and eruption of four volatile elements: super-tall buildings, financial speculation, globalization, and terrorism. The Trade Center serves as a potent symbol of the disastrous consequences of undemocratic planning and development.