Anyone who cares about Arabian horses, especially the Egyptian type, just has to read this book. It tells a lot about how the breed came to be and is illustrated beautifully. It is not leasurely reading because it does take you back in time and into a complete different world than ours is today. Add too that that it is a complete different culture altogether and you'll enjoy every bit of the book. I truely recommend this book to all of you Arabian horse lovers. Maybe it is helpfull to learn a bit about Islam culture before reading this book so you can understand the culture even better.

Abou And The Angel Cohen by Claude Campbell is an original, ironic, humorous, and sometimes tragic novel of conflict in the Gaza Strip in the Middle East, with a plot based in part on a classic 1834 poem "Abou Ben Adhem" about how and angel comes to Abou one night. Problems amount for the modern-day Abou Ben Adhem as family conflicts and a looming political situation seems to spiral out of control, an angel's guidance can bring wisdom and comfort in unexpected ways. A moving, powerful, and recommended book, Abou And The Angel Cohen will grip the reader's rapt attention from first page to last.

The author discusses the history from the origins to the Unesco Nubian rescue in 1961. He writes about the various temples in Nubia, including Kalabsha, Beit al-Wali, Dakka, Amada, Derr and Qasr Ibrim. The temples of Ramses II and Nefertari are described in avid detail. Completed by beautiful photographs and useful maps, this is a much needed guide, essential for travelers.

With his seminal book on Acre, T. Philipp sets a very high standard by which all books on the area will be eventually judged. It covers all aspects of the development of the city
(social, political, economic...), and places them in their regional context. It is an extremely well researched yet easy to
read book. It should be a required reading for anyone interested
in the Near East, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. One can only hope
that professor Philipp will publish next the sequel to this book:
the rise of Beirut in the XIX th century.

Across The Pacific: An Inner History of American - East Asian Relations was a great starting point. This book was my first exploration into the relationship between the United States and Japan before World War II. Across the Pacific does not just cover 1800 to WWII, but it covers the relations up until the late 1960's. The whole book is interesting, but the section that I personally found the most interesting was the issues that the United States and Japan were facing as the two countries moved apart before the second World War. It made me think about how much the world economic state and the control of resources play in foreign relations. It also brought to light some issues that surround imperialism, and in this case, the Japanese and the old British Empire. This book also made me aware of the power of perception if it is Cordell Hull or John MacMurray, and the role that they play.

I strongly recommend this this book, especially if you are looking for a starting point. I found Across the Pacific fascinating.

This books offers us an untainted view of the establishment of the Fatimiyya Caliphate. It provides the readers with a critical, covert view of the aspects of life in Ifriqiya at that time. It's unfortunate the editors could not expound on certain situations that took place pre and post advent of the dynasty such as the factual reasons behind the execution of the two Da'i brothers.

The translated manuscript provides a solid glimpse of Ibn al-Haytham's personal view and feelings of the ongoings during this period in time.

In light of the deteriorating situation in the Middle East, Monk's An Aesthetic Occupation offers an enlightening perspective on the tired discourse of recrimination and counter-recrimination that has guided the Palestine conflict for over a hundred years. Monk's analysis of architecture as the focus of the accusations fired from both sides does not recreate the rhetoric of the historical actors he engages. Rather, as Monk himself would put it, his book is a history of the history of how architecture has been deployed in the conflict. And as such, the book both gets at the very emptiness of the ideologies that drive this conflict, and demonstrates the eternal return of that emptiness as both sides re-invoke architecture as the epicenter of historical ethnic claims on the land. In this, we need only remind ourselves that the current violence was sparked by Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in the autumn of 2000, in a blatant disregard (and repetition) of a history of ideological discourse about architecture and ownership of place that goes back at least to General Charles Gordon, the nineteenth-century British imperialist with whom Monk begins his study.

In short, this is an excellent book, excellent because it is able to articulate and theorize the discursive and aesthetic apparatus in which Middle Eastern politics of the conflict have been caught. Monk does not offer explicit solutions out of that morass, but one is still forced to believe that enlightenment and analysis are the first step toward a solution. It is here that Monk's book offers something for the present and for the future.

In this exceptional volume Chris Steele-Perkins has distilled four separate travel adventures into an enormously effective photo-essay depicting Afghanistan at a time when the now ignominious Taliban were just taking hold of and consolidating their political power (c.1995). Although the book has as its focus unending war and the horrendous impact interminable armed conflict has had on the people of Afghanistan, what is remarkable in Steele-Perkin's work is how the daily pulse of ordinary life lived within a landscape of devastation and ruin manages consistently to emerge through the gloom. Because these wonderfully evocative images are indeed full of life! And full of the great beauty and mystery of the Afghan people. Two written essays (one by the photographer is a splendid travelogue) complement perfectly this accomplished portfolio of haunting images.

This two-sided map easily outperforms other maps that are commercially available either on-line or in stores. The only map that comes close is the Afghanistan map in the Nelles Maps series, and the legend of the Nelles map cuts out the areas in Pakistan bordering the Afghan provinces of Paktia and Paktika, where considerable military action is taking place. This map serves as an outstanding teaching tool, enabling teachers to physically show the range of Pakhtun territory without sacrificing detail of topography and settlement. As a bonus, the map shows a substantial chunk of northern and western India, including all of Kashmir, all of Punjab, and parts of Rajasthan and Gujarat. Afghanistan does not exist in isolation, and this map is a good starting point for exploring Afghanistan's connections to the rest of the world. One hopes that the "limited availability" of this map does not indicate that it is no longer in print. Otherwise one is left with detailed maps of an Afghanistan detached from its neighbors or with the useless, data-poor, primary-color maps available on the web.

This is a tour de force; a comprehensive, lucid, and insightful account that makes a tangle of events over 20 years almost understandable. Scrupulously documented, full of sage judgments, cogently written, and eminently well organized, it is one of the best books on contemporary history I have read. Highly recommended along with Fundamentalism Reborn, an exceptional compilation of articles about Taliban Afghanistan.