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Iraq Reading List
Experts Recommend Top Titles to Understand Conflict in Gulf
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March 13, 2003 -- Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan joins David Fromkin, Boston University history professor and author of A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East; Mark Strauss, sr. editor of Foreign Policy magazine; Mike Edwards, contributing writer for National Geographic;
and Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Arabian Jazz and the forthcoming Crescent, to discuss the most useful resources for understanding Iraq. Following is a list of their recommendations, as well as listener suggestions.
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Historian & Author David Fromkin
Suggestions from the author of A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East.
• Gertrude Bell by H.V.F. Winstone (Jonathan Cape; 1988)
• Britain's Informal Empire in the Middle East: A Case Study of Iraq 1929-1941 by Daniel Silverfarb (Oxford; 1986)
• Arabia, the Gulf & the West: A Critical View of the Arabs and Their Oil Policy by J.B. Kelly (Basic Books; 1980)
• The Dream Palace of the Arabs by Fouad Ajami (Pantheon; 1998)
• The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror by Bernard Lewis (Modern Library; scheduled for publication April 2003)
Mark Strauss
Suggestions from the sr. editor of Foreign Policy magazine.
• A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin (Owl Books; 2001)
• The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq by Hanna Batatu (Princeton University Press; 1978)
• Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy by John Lewis Gaddis (Oxford University Press; 1982)
• "Iraq: Profile of a Nuclear Addict" by Ahmed Hashim, Brown Journal of World Affairs (Winter/Spring 1997)
• "Iraq: Beyond the Crisis du Jour" by David A. Kay, The Washington Quarterly (Summer 1998)
• The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Growing Crisis of Global Security by Richard Butler (PublicAffairs; 2000)
• "An Unnecessary War" by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt (Foreign Policy magazine, January/February 2003)
• "Democratic Mirage in the Middle East" by Marina Ottaway, Thomas Carothers, Amy Hawthorne, and Daniel Brumberg (Policy Brief #20, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)
• War over Iraq: Saddam's Tyranny an
America's Mission by William Kristol and Lawrence F. Kaplan (Encounter Books; 1st edition February 2003)
Mike Edwards
Suggestions from a contributing writer for National Geographic.
• Atlas of the Middle East (National Geographic; 2003)
• The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein by Sandra Mackey (W.W. Norton & Company; May 2002)
• The Kurds of Iraq by Michael M. Gunter (St. Martin's Press; 1992)
• Out of the Ashes, The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein by Andrew and Patrick Cockburn (Perennial; March 2000)
• The Age of the Caliphs by Berthold Spuler (1969)
• War in the Gulf by Thomas B. Allen and others (Turner Publishing (CNN); 1991)
Diana Abu-Jaber
Suggestions from Portland State Univeristy professor and author of Arabian Jazz (Norton; 2003) and the forthcoming novel Crescent.
• Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village, by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea (Anchor; reissue edition June 1969)
• Arab Folktales, edited by Inea Bushnaq (Pantheon Books; October 1987)
• Night and Horses and the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature, edited by Robert Irwin (Anchor; January 2002)
• Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing, edited by Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke (Indiana University Press; September 1990)
• Arabesques: A Novel by Anton Shammas, Vivian Eden (translator) (University of California Press; May 2001)
More Suggestions:
NPR's Jennifer Ludden, former Middle East correspondent, recommends the following two books:
• Out of the Ashes, The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein by Andrew and Patrick Cockburn (Perennial; March 2000)
• Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge by Said K. Aburish (Bloomsbury USA; December 1999)
Listener Suggestions:
• Bin Laden, Islam, and America's New 'War on Terrorism' by Asad Abukhalil (Seven Stories Press; March 5, 2002)
• Target Iraq: What The News Media Didn't Tell You by Norman Solomon, Reese Erlich, Howard Zinn (Introduction) and Sean Penn (Context Books; January 2003)
• Before & After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September
11th Crisis by Phyllis Bennis and Noam Chomsky
(Olive Branch Pr; September 2002)
• The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein by Sandra Mackey (W.W. Norton & Company; May 2002)
• The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein by Sandra Mackey (W.W. Norton & Company; May 2002)
• Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden (Atlantic Monthly Pr; March 1999)
• Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq by Kanan Makiya (University of California Press; Updated edition June 1998)
• The Chatham House Version and Other Middle-Eastern Studies by Elie Kedourie (University Press of New England; New edition May 1984)
• The Shaping of the Modern Middle East by Bernard Lewis (Oxford University Press; Reprint edition January 1994)
• History of the Arabs by Philip Hitti
(Palgrave Macmillan; 10th edition Sept. 6, 2002)
• The Prize by Daniel Yergin
(Palgrave Macmillan; 10th edition September 6, 2002)
In Depth
NPR News Special: Confronting Iraq
Explore NPR News coverage of the conflict with Iraq.
The Best Books on the Middle East
Experts recommend top titles to understand Mideast conflict.
NPR's Mideast Coverage
Reports and transcripts from NPR's recent coverage.
Other Resources
• Foreign Policy Magazine
Covers global politics, economics and ideas.
• Brown Journal of World Affairs
A foreign affairs periodical published by Brown University.
• Washington Quarterly
A journal of international affairs published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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