Middle East Books

McDowall did a great job listing the facts of Palestinian history. He showed how false the Zionist claims are of "land with no people for people with no land", and brilliantly analyzed the causes and effects of the Palestinian dispossession and "expulsion" of their land. He listed the facts and figures associated with the Zionist occupation of Palestine and leading to the Palestinian Diaspora and fight for freedom. Great work.

McDowall did a great job listing the facts of Palestinian history. He showed how false the Zionist claims are of "land with no people for people with no land", and brilliantly analyzed the causes and effects of the Palestinian dispossession and "expulsion" of their land. He listed the facts and figures associated with the Zionist occupation of Palestine and leading to the Palestinian Diaspora and fight for freedom. Great work.

This book is a must read. I was always taught that Rome was the only civilised power in the world, and that never made sense to me. But Collins shows how a nation called Parthia which is apart of the Ten Tribes of Israel riviled Rome in greatness and strength and how the Bible and Parthia have a connection not only culture but also of belifes. I've never heard of Parthia before this book, not even in my collage corses. This book is a must read!

Author: Steven M. Collins

Although little-known to modern readers, the ancient kingdom of Parthia played a key role in historical and Biblical events. In this book, exciting new research is presented proving a Semitic-Israelite connection and even a link to King David within the Parthian royal family.

The names of Israelite tribes and clans are in evidence, and Parthia's first capital city was named after "Isaac." Another surprise: the cover of the book shows a cutaway diagram of an ancient Parthian direct current battery. A number of these batteries have been found, and this book documents the sensational discovery of electricity and examines its possible ancient uses.

Some of the events of Jesus Christ's life become more understandable when they are examined in light of the politics that prevailed between Rome and Parthia at that time. One group of Parthian elites that chose Parthia's emperors was called the "Magi" or "Wise Men." A delegation of these high Parthian officials worshipped the young Jesus.

This exciting story is told with the aid of over 100 maps, charts, and illustrations. Very well researched by historian and writer, Steven M. Collins, with 16 pages of appendices.

This is truly a book you will find hard to set down.
Paperback
256 pages

This magnificent out-of-print book reveals many insights into Saigon's final days. Herrington was there, in Saigon the last several years until the last day. He spoke fluent Vietnamese; he knew the Vietnamese, ally and enemy. He felt the betrayal and tried to get as many out of Saigon as he could. Herrington's famous last words to the Vietnamese trying to to board the last choppers, "Khong co ai se bi bo lai" or "No one will be left behind." He meant that and by 1983, long before anyone (minus the CIA's Frank Snepp) had written about Saigon's collapse, had penned this magnificent book. It should be republished so that Americans and Vietnamese expatriates can understand why South Vietnam was lost thirty years ago.

The preface of Stuart Herrington's first memoir, "Stalking the Vietcong", relates the mood of the country in 1961: exhilarated, optimistic, omnipotent. He quotes Kennedy's inaugural, which included the pledge to "bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty". In "Peace With Honor?", his elegiac second memoir, we see the awful damage such grandiose promises can wreak.

Of course, any of the Cubans stranded without air support at the Bay of Pigs could have told the Vietnamese that some burdens were too heavy for the US to bear. Arthur Schlesinger explains in "A Thousand Days" how JFK didn't want to turn world opinion against his administration by supporting the invasion. That was a quick decision. In Richard Shultz' new book he details JFK's efforts to wage a covert war against Hanoi and still remain within the boundaries of all the international treaties. In other words, he decided to stop the North secretly, so as to maintain his honor--a less quick decision, but a decision all the same.

By the time of the fall of Saigon, the very notion of honor in Vietnam had become a little more than a source of bitter jokes. "Peace With Honor?" refers to President Nixon's version of honor in Vietnam, the Paris Peace Agreement. The question mark is added, I presume, because of the way Hanoi "honored" the agreement, and the way America enforced it. A ceasefire was declared, the Americans withdrew, the North regrouped, and attacked, and overran the South. "Peace With Honor?" is the final chapter of the tale that began with the pledge to "bear any burden". After fifteen long years the burden of Vietnam had become too heavy. A friend had to be betrayed and abandoned.

Herrington is unique in my experience with writers on Vietnam in that he knows the language. The Halberstams and the Karnows and the McNamaras have poured an ocean of words into explanations and perspectives of the war, but it all seems a little abstract next to Herrington's personal accounts. I doubt whether you can understand a culture or its problems, much less solve them, unless you speak to its people, and you can't speak to its people unless you know their language. Imagine trying to liberate France from the Nazis with no French speakers on your team. It could have been done, but would been much harder. Probably half the people in the Roosevelt administration knew some French. I wonder whether there was even one person in the Kennedy or Johnson or Nixon administrations that spoke Vietnamese.

"Peace With Honor?" then, is a portrait of the Vietnamese people, not just the southerners but those from the north as well, people from Hanoi and Saigon as well as peasants from the countryside. There is the heart-rending story of an 18-year-old boy drafted and killed in a few days, because his family elects not to pay off the conscription sergeant. There is the outrage and incomprehension of the South Vietnamese who watch the North violate the ceasefire with impunity and grind ever closer to their home. There is Col. Herrington's personal account of the evacuation airplane full of babies that crashed soon after take-off. He arrived to find the plane's fuselage "twisted and burning in the mud", and in the field around it "mud-covered infants strewn everywhere --some of them ashen-faced and quiet, others screaming in pain or fright". It would take the heart of a communist to view such a scene as a propaganda opportunity, and indeed that's what it became, with Hanoi's representatives claiming that the Americans were taking Vietnamese children to concentration camps.

One gets the impression from his conversations with North Vietnamese that they believed their own propaganda: an NVA Major insists Hanoi was bombed into rubble and that the socialist masses rebuilt the city, employing, according to Herrington, sophisticated aging techniques to make the buildings appear seventy years old. Another NVA Major tries to explain away the mass graves of civilians slaughtered in the city of Hue after it was taken during the Tet Offensive by saying they were caught in a crossfire. Herrington asks him whether he finds it unusual that the civilians had their hands tied behind their backs during the "crossfire".

The final third of the book finds Herrington struggling to evacuate as many people as he can from the collapsing Saigon. As for anyone who has come to know and love a culture, it was extremely painful for him to see it sacked. He spent a lot of time reassuring panic-stricken people that they would not be left behind to be reeducated or murdered. We Americans tend to view conflicts as presenting two options: stay and fight; or turn and run. But for the Saigonese in 1975 there was nowhere to run. In Cambodia, the only nearby country, the communists were arranging an even more efficient solution to the class enemy problem. Running in all other directions brought you to the sea.

So there was extreme terror and desperation. Near the end of the evacuation Herrington receives and obeys orders to leave on the final helicopter, though 420 people who have been assured of safe passage are still waiting on the embassy stairway. For the people of Vietnam this helicopter that never comes is the final betrayal.

I was reminded of the words of a novel that had been written a half a century before the war: "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made..."

Ali Farzat is probably one of the greatest cartoonists in the world today. he would have got way more publicity if he was not an Arab... his work is underrated... i loved this book

This just in from MEMRI - Syria is trying to prevent this book's distribution. Check out Farzat's cartoons in the Kuwaiti paper Al-Watan

In this very concise book (only 130 pages), Rubinstein gives the reader a great introduction to the average Palestinian refugee's attachment to the land of Israel. If you want a very easy to read, informative introduction to the attachment of Palestinian refugees to their homes this is the book to read. I highly recommend it!

That this book is out of print is unbelievable to me. It could help so many, today and tomorrow, to understand the Palestinian culture in a way I've never read about in any other book. Mr. Rubinstein is a revered Israeli columnist for Ha'aretz News and acknowledged as the leading Israeli "Arabist". Though his columns are information, this book is truly alive with visual images no where else to be found, with insights so critical for Americans and Israelis. How Random House allowed this timeless book to have only a short shelf life is really astounding and upsetting to me. Try and get it Used and then add your review to mine. You won't be disappointed; this book is a true gem.

The author offers a fantastic view of the Japanese monarchy that is well worth the read. A wonderful historical take on the subject.

Kenneth J. Ruoff is an Associate Professor of Japanese History at Portland State University. Dr. Ruoff is the Director of the Center for Japanese Studies at the university.

Professor Ruoff received the 2004 Jiro Osaragi Commentary Prize for the Japanese translation of his book THE PEOPLE'S EMPEROR. The prize was given at a ceremony at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo January 27, 2005. The prize include an award of two million yen. Dr. Ruoff is the first foreigner to receive the Osaragi Prize.

My history professor claims that this is one book which former students complain about years after having read it. It is dense. There are lots of odd names which run together. It is absolutely not for the casual reader. But I would consider it necessary reading for all scholars of China, Asia, or just history in general. I found it fascinating that the steppe tribes and the various Chinese governments had a not-always unspoken agreement, in which the tribes were essentially allowed to conquer a limited region of China, in exchange for securing trade routes and defending against tribes outside of the system.

Barfield's primary thesis is that the dynamics of Chinese civilization are not intelligible considered in isoloation. Rather, comprehension requires the distinction between Manchurian and Native dynasties and the role that empires of the steppe played in the changes between them.

Of special interest is that by far the best know steppe empire, that of the Mongols under Temujin and his successors, was an anomalous exception to the 2,000 year pattern. Typical steppe empires were interested in extortion (or tribute, or gifts, depending on who tells the story), not direct rule.

If you're a student of Chinese history or of the dynamics of civilizations, read this book. You'll think differently.

Of course, Iran is a volatile land and, even as I write, the state of the land is in flux. After my visit to Iran in 1997, this was one of the few accounts of Iran which truly reiterated and elaborated on the thoughts I had of this Islamic Republic. Insightful, fascinating, and realistic-this book doesn't get the attention it deserves.

Reed's light-footed journalism runs circles around the ponderous television crews of media giants. Visiting Iran repeatedly on a simple quest for understanding, he interviews every sort of person he can - angry unemployed men, film makers, dissident theologians, self-righteous officials, scientists, reflective young women. The product is a respectful, street-smart, entertaining tour of Iran in the post-war, post-revolution 90's. Here's a sample postcard:

"Why the sudden uproar when I climb into the bus? Why are voices shrilling in protest, hands reaching out to jab my shoulder, fingers pointing at chador-clad heads? Why are the expressions on the passengers' faces wavering between indignation and amusement? Strange. The faces are all women's. Slowly, what has happened penetrates my consciousness: obsessed with escaping the omnipresent press of humanity, I have boarded the less crowded women's section. Forbidden zone. Males keep out. Sorry. O so sorry. With mumbled apologies I back out the door and rush chastened to the fore-compartment. No seats here. Nothing but a mass of male bodies crushed up against one another like bruised tangerines in a crate. The women are seated at the back, gazing imperturbably, primly now, out the windows. I catch a man's eye. His expression is one of resignation mixed with sympathy, as if to say: `This is Iran'." (p. 143)

Petra is like no other city on earth. It is one of the most mysterious, fascinating and beautiful of all the ancient Biblical sites. Known in the Scriptures as ""Selah"", during the time of Abraham, it is situated in the mountains of Seir-the land of the Edomites.

So perfectly concealed among the rose-red cliffs of Edom, this amazingly well preserved city of Petra remained lost and almost forgotten for over a thousand years. Nestled in a craggy canyon of red, pink, white, brown and violet rock, the city is practically invisible from the air and impregnable from the ground. The natural caves that honeycomb the area were home to man thousands of years before history began.

The very memory of the great and mighty city was lost, its situation completely forgotten, and it became a legend of mystery and wonder. Explorers tried in vain to find its fabled glories. But, due to the utter inaccessibility of Petra's rocky vastness and the wild nature of the few inhabitants of the surrounding district, its entrance was kept secret for centuries.

Once Petra had been discoverd it was inevitable that it should be a focus of study. From beneath the shifting sands that cover ancient Petra has emerged evidence that has shed light on the city and its people. These people are woven intermittently across the pages of the Bible.

On the pages of this engrossing book, the author presents a brief review of the history and peoples of a city spoken of by the prophet Ezekial: ""Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, O Mount Seir, I am aganist thee, and will stretch out mine hand aganist thee, and will make thee most desolate."" (Ezekial 35:3)

This book is well written, E Raymond Capt's knowlegde about Petra and how it came about and ultimate desolation is amazing. Capt almost makes you feel as if you were there, seeing this land that was lost, for yourself. Capt's ability to combine science and biblical knowledge is far better than I could have ever thought. Overall, this book is just like Capt's other works, a great read, thats easy to follow and understand, that your sure to enjoy it. I highly recommend this book.

I am a traveller from Madrid and was given this book as a gift by a friend from Manila. It was full of everything a traveller who is unfamiliar with an exotic country like the Philippines. When I went there with several friends last year we found the book to be extremely helpful and so accurate in detail that we had an easy time moving around, finding hotels and site-seeing areas. To the authors: thank you for a very relaxing trip to the Philippines!

We were being assigned to the Philippines and I browsed through all the travel books available on the country. I chose this (the first edition) because i liked the way it was written and that the writers live in the Philippines. Let me tell you, I was not disappointed! In fact i found both the information provided and the personalized descriptions of places to stay and eat very helpful. When the second edition came out i bought it and passed on my old copy to a friend. The 2nd edition has new information (unlike others that i have found are almost completely re-writes of past editions) and continues to be a more personal travel guide. I will be sorry to leave the country and this book has helped my family enjoy our travels.