Middle East Books

This book is a well written picture book that will hold the attention of young children, but has enough solid information to also educate older children and adults.

This book fills in the gaps most of us were left with after a public education.

The book arrived in a timely manner and was exactly as described. This title has great artwork.

This book isn't a history or academic work. In fact, it's a picture book designed for children ages 7 and up. However, that should not suggest that it's not worth a read even for adults as an introduction to the life and times of Cleopatra, Antony, and the fall of the Roman Republic. The author presents a detailed, fact-based account of the queen's life, including pertinent and amazingly helpful references and quotations from Plutarch's histories. No fictional flourishes were added to richen the story, and though sometimes opinion slips in in a description of a descision or event, the story is very unassuming and true to historical evidence and generally accepted fact.
So, as a short academic text, this book lays out the basics of her life (her marriage and civil war with her brother Ptolemy, wishes for an empire combinging East and West, affairs and marriages to Caesar and Antony, defeat at Actium and suicide in Alexandria,) in an inviting, exciting manner. But, in this case, its more important role is as a picture book, a role that it magnificently fills and excels in. Stanley's illustrations are beautiful and lavish, scenes of the beautiful queen and the people of her life set among breathtaking scenery such as the Alexandrian palace and harbor, the streets of Rome, and flowing sea. One particular favorite of mine is the illustration of Cleopatra's vessel as she approaches Antony's encampment at Tarsus, in which she sits reclining, dressed as Venus, in all of her splendor upon the magnificent boat and splendid sea.
For the fledgling historian (particularly a child interested in history) this book is a must. I recommend it to anyone wanting a springboard from which to learn about the wonderful, tragic, and tumultous life of the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt, and the fall of the Ptolemaic empire.

I have found that the best way to learn about many subjects is to pick up a children's book from the library. In a good children's book, the facts are clearly and engagingly laid out, often with wonderful illustrations. You finish the book knowing that you have learned something you didn't already know, and it was explained so simply and clearly that you are not going to forget what you've learned. Cleopatra by Diane Stanley is that kind of book. While it is written "simply", it does not talk down to the child or to an adult reading the book. It just says what happened in a memorable way. Books like these teach history the way it ought to be taught. Highly recommended.

Diane's Stanley's illustrations are masterful, incredibly detailed, and wonderfully expressive; every page (except for the two useful maps) is covered with either spreads that have been delicately painted to look like tile work, as can be seen on the marvelous cover, or has large and intricate paintings, with so much in its compositions that one can look at them repeatedly and find new things to admire.
Stanley's technique is superb, and her medium is gouache.

The history is fascinating and clearly written, and describes the times that Cleopatra lived in as well as what is known about her, which as Staley and Vennema point out, "Everything we know about Cleopatra was written by her enemies", and also, though we know what Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony and Octavian looked like, all we have of Cleopatra's image are crudely carved coins, as her statues were destroyed.
Though only 48 pages in length, each page has either information worth reading and learning (by both children and adults), or is graced by Stanley's beautiful work, making it weighty in content; as an artist and illustrator, I tip my hat to her creativity and skill.

THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOOKS ABOUT THE OLDEST CITY IN THE WORLD, MUST HAVE.

About this purchase I have all the good things to remmember and now share with all the other AMAZON customers.
First, I tried to buy the same book from another seller ( A1Books ), but they sent a wrong book and after many emails, I have NOT a single reply. After a time I contacted the AMAZON and they provided a REFUND of the book as a kind of warranty for the buyer.
Later, as I really needed the book ( I am building a palace in Islamic style in Rio de Janeiro)I bought the book directely from AMAZON. In some days I received the book fast and in very safe package.
In order to see what I am making check: [...]
Thanks!

Affordable entertaining book if you love Damascus like i do.Excellent pictures .No big lies like some authers who are experts!!!!. buy it you will love it.Give it as gift to any friend.

Photos here are exquisite, great text in pursuit of a noble cause--saving the crumbling architectural treasures in Old Damascus. Would be tragic if these are forever lost--the feeling of standing in a mosaic courtyard with trees, a fountain in the middle, where just outside the bustle of the world moves by in the suq...this book brings back memories of the place, if you've ever been there. The one comfort is that if these houses do crumble beyond repair, at least they are preserved in some way in this beautiful book.

Combine Syria's architectural treasures with the warmth of its people, its great food, and you see why it leaves such an impression with visitors.

This book is a must for anyone who loves Damascus and is concerned about its deterioration. It's a must for any Damascene expatriate's living room coffee table book collection for sure. The photographs are absolutely stunning and the text is interesting and engaging. One flaw, however is that I would have liked to see the photographs and the text regarding specific houses cross-referenced, (perhaps in the appendix of houses' names in the back of the book) as photographs and texts about specific houses are scattered throughout the book and you have to find all the references yourself--very annoying. Other than that, it is a wonderful book for showing off a unique aspect of our beloved city. Some of these houses are being used as sets for Syrian soap operas-- look closely and you might recognize some!

Dancing in Shadows combines politics with personality. Benny Widyono creates a dynamic read in this memoir of the heady days following the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. All of the personalities and conflicting loyalties that make themselves known when the whole world comes to town (ie. UN) are in evidence here. What could be a dry record of past events is much tastier with Ambassador Widyono's wit and honesty. A must read for anyone interested in S. E. Asia.

As a undergraduate student of Cambodian history, this book was a personal must-read. Surprisingly, it isn't your typical dry historical accounting, it reads quite suspenseful at times, and one gets the feeling of being in Widyono's shoes, experiencing firsthand the lively political intrigues pitting together three powerful (yet flawed and insecure) personalities -- Sihanouk, Ranarridh, and Hun Sen. This book could very well be the definitive reference source for this under-reported and misunderstood period in Cambodian history.

Dr. Widyono gives us an insider's view into the complexities, suffering and political bargaining that transformed Cambodia. Through his book, we can now see what REALLY went on without the guise of political partisanship and propaganda. Although at the time, Dr. Widyono was a member of the UN transitional team and later a special envoy to the Secretary General, he spares no criticism of the UN operation. His account of the battle for power in Cambodia, the eventual peace process and its repercussions certainly is timely and offers lessons for today.

Rarely does an insider to a critical period in a nation's history describe the players and events so unabashedly. Dr. Widyono has provided readers with a bird's eye view of events that does not gloss over or curry favor with any group or individuals. He writes honestly and often amusingly about his life and work during this tumultuous period in Cambodia's history.

This is Benny Widyono's engaging memoir of his five years in Cambodia, first as a senior official in the UN Transitional Authority (UNTAC), responsible for the Province of Siem Reap, and later as the Personal Representative of the Secretary General after the new Royal Government was formed. Widyono's analysis of the flawed preparations for Cambodia's first modern elections is fresh and well-documented. Less dramatic, but no less important, was his role, along with the diplomatic corps in Phnom Penh, in monitoring and sometimes influencing the efforts of Cambodia to maintain a fractious coalition -- only to see it come apart in 1997. This is an engrossing read, especially for those who already know a little about Cambodia's recent history. For the beginner, it features an detailed chronology and an excellent bibliography.

Edward Said's blaming the West and its "Orientalism" for all the problems of the Arab World has provided much fuel over the years for demagogues and refusniks throughout the middle east and has thus contributed to the continued backwardness of that region. His "victimization" mantra has been especially devastating to the Palestinians and their aspirations for statehood and international recognition. Since, by playing the "victimization" card and the scapegoat card, which is what Edward Said's "Orientalism" is all about, the peoples of that region have failed to see what is really wrong with their societies and have therefore failed to take any meaningful actions to remedy the situation. Anger towards the West (and the resultant terrorism) then becomes the only option. Sadly too many in the West, especially in academia, have also bowed down at the altar of Edward Said and elevated him to the status of prophet--or even deity--for telling them what they wanted to hear, which in turn has only provided all the more fuel for the victimizationers and scapegoaters in the middle east. However, Ibn Warraq brilliantly puts everything into perspective and totally demolishes Said's thesis. If one does nothing else they should read chapter 8 "The Pathological Niceness of Liberals, Antimonies, Paradoxes, and Western Values." While the entire book is most noteworty, chapter 8 should be required reading by every person in the West who has any desire at all to see our civilization survive the 21st century. To sum up, the research that went into this book is mind boggling, and every point he makes is thoroughly documented. Scholarly, yet accessible to the non-scholar.

Ibn Warraq, author of other brilliant and explosive books such as Why I Am Not a Muslim finally deals the death blow to Edward Said's mythmaking Orientalism (Penguin Modern Classics).

It is a needed critique because so many in the academy have been seduced by Mr. Said. Edward Said was a Anglican Arab raised to an upper class family that lived the life of the jet-set, travelling back and forth from mansions in Egypt, Lebanon and Jerusalem. Said, after his upbringing that included Armenian and Jewish servants, went on to claim that the west was racist for daring to write about the history of the 'East' from a western perspective. He claimed that only Muslims could tell Muslim history and only Arabs could write Arab history.

Warraq shows that not only was Said wrong in asserting that western portrayels of the 'east' were racist, but that in most cases the west romantisized the east and accepted it and learned from it. This is most true today when most western scholarship never critiqus the Koran or the 'east' but instead accepts all the myths it has itself created. This incisive and wonderful book dares to break down these myths and explode them.

Seth J. Frantzman

DEFENDING THE WEST: A CRITIQUE OF EDWARD SAID'S ORIENTALISM is the first in-depth critique of a work that for three decades has received nearly unanimous recommendation and discussion. Said's thesis was that the Western image of the East was biased by colonialist attitudes and racism: this reconsideration offers a powerful rebuttal to college-level audiences, surveying misinterpretations in Said's original survey of scholarly literature and providing college-level collections strong in history and culture with a fine reinterpretation. Collections housing Said's work need this rebuttal.

The book is OK (like any book, I guess), but Ibn Warraq is way too serious about the subject, in my view. It is understandable, considering the impact of Said's "scholarship".
But, still, Edward Said is not an "intellectual terrorist". I think there is a difference between terror and pogrom. To call Edward Said a terrorist, or an intellectual, would be as ridiculous as to call Trofim Lysenko a scientist, or a biologist. Terrorist have to hide his intentions. Pogrom is done with a certain assurance of impunity. That's exactly what Edward Said have done.
I guess there is some point in refuting Said's ravings. But overall it looks a little bit odd: really, if you are normal, you wouldn't go to a clinic for mentally ill for some quarrels or intellectual discussions. There are doctors or nurses for that.

For 25 years, many leaders and candidates have accepted the willful misinterpretation of Western history instigated by Columbia University's infamous late professor, Edward Said. Western civilization could greatly benefit if current presidential hopefuls read this bromide of a book, identifying the damage Said caused---and providing a curative.

Politicians here gain a yardstick to measure Western cultural grandeurs (including intense self-criticism)---compared with ongoing social dysfunction, disintegration and horrors over 1,400 years of Islamic history.

Colleges requiring students to read Edward Said's Orientalism should also require this 24-karat tome, rebutting Said's flawed evaluation of the West---what Ibn Warraq identifies as inadequate methods, incoherence, tendentious interpretations---and amusing, but dangerous "historical howlers."

He credits Said for courage and self-criticism---in disparaging Arab writers insisting "the Jews never suffered..., the Holocaust is an obfuscatory confection created by the Elders of Zion," or supporting criminal French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy.

But Orientalism's "pernicious influence" made Arab and Muslim self-examination---especially criticism of Islam within the West---nearly impossible, Ibn Warraq shows; it "taught an entire generation ... the art of self-pity," blaming all Arab and Muslim miseries on "wicked imperialists, racists and Zionists" whom Arabs and Muslims almost universally blame for their failure to reascend.

Alas, Said neglected historical Islamic imperialism---from Mohammed's invention of "one true faith" through the 17th Century, with reprises whenever wealth, time and war materiel sufficed. Petrodollars fueled the recent Islamic renewal of this effort---via "modernized" Muslim Brotherhood ancient Islamic strategy, supremacist jihad---and aggressive 21st century financial jihad through "shari'a finance."

Terror-advocating "experts" like former Pakistani Shari'a Court jurist, Taqi Usmani set Islamic banking standards for the MB construct that was established to promote Islamic supremacy. Usmani serves on the shari'a board of Saudi Arabia's terror-funding Dallah al-Baraka; in July 2007 he advised U.K. Muslims to live peacefully only until they acquire military strength to "establish the supremacy of Islam." Syrian Abdul Sattar Abu Ghuddah is a senior-level advisor to al-Baraka.

Christian, and not an Islamic scholar, Said nevertheless "bludgeoned into silence any criticism of Islam"---adding late-modern inadmissibility to ancient Islamic shari'a tradition: Muslims (or non-Muslims) criticizing Mohammed or Islam are guilty of blasphemy, punishable under Islamic law by death.

Ibn Warraq shows innumerable Western to Islam. Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz avowed, "Napoleon's campaign" ushered Egypt from "centuries of obscurantism" into modernity, including discoveries of pre-Islamic Egypt, which now anchor Egypt's tourism.

Said held, "the Orient was viewed as something inviting French interest, penetration, insemination--in short colonization...." He ignored the German, Russian, Italian and Western Jewish scholars who created Islamic, Middle Eastern and Arabic studies, thereby gutting his thesis.

Ibn Warraq finds Westerners and Western history and thought characterized by "three tutelary guiding lights,"--rationalism; universalism; and self-criticism. Pursuing truth and knowledge, Westerners accepted others and all humanity--and consistently criticized societies to improve them. Sir Jadunuth Sarkar credited the English with India's 19th century Renaissance---a mass-recovery from 500 years of Muslim jihad invasions (1000-1525), when an estimated 80 million Hindus perished.

But Islamic orthodoxy remains "suspicious of `knowledge for its own sake'." Unlimited intellectual inquiry is "dangerous to the faith." The 2003 Arab Human Development Report thus found fewer books translated into Arabic in the last 1,000 years than Spain translates in one year; Greece (population, under 11 million), annually translates five times the foreign books as all 22 Arab nations combined (population, 300 million).

Arab and Muslim pleas for assistance often brought Western "imperialists" to the Middle East to start with, Ibn Warraq notes. Sultan Selim III declared Jihad after Napoleon's 1789 Egyptian conquest---joining the infidel British and Russians to protect his imperial territories from the French. In 1804, the Ottomans got territorial guarantees from Russia and Austria; In 1809, they again allied with the British. In 1866, the Sultan permitted Suez canal construction, against British and French objections. Egypt's Khedive Ismail nearly bankrupted his protectorate---and in 1875 sold the Suez to Britain for its £4 million nominal value to unwind debts. Only reluctantly, the British helped quell riots that followed---yet the Sultan refused Britain's request that he repossess canal ownership.

Said ignored historical evidence, mimicking superficial French "existentialists, structuralists, deconstructionists and postmodernists" methods, and "grandiose theories" supported by "flimsy history or empirical foundations." Said's signature work displays "laziness and arrogance" of a literary man lacking time for empirical research or need to prove his results.

Said offended worst by neglecting comparisons. Using them, Ibn Warraq affirms the West.

Said excoriates Western slavery. But Muslim traders were far more culpable. From 1700 to 1929, Arabs traded over 17 million black slaves---including 1.5 million who perished crossing the Sahara; little over 11 million crossed the Atlantic. The Occident outlawed slavery. Muslims saw Western abolitionists as "a threat to their very livelihood but also as an affront to their religion."

Tenth century Arab geographer al-Maqdisi described "Zanj," Bantu-speaking East Africans, as "people of black color, flat noses, kinky hair and little understanding." A 10th century Persian treatise called Africans "people distant from the standards of humanity." A 13th century Persian wrote, "the ape is more teachable and more intelligent than the Zanji." Islamic social scientist, economist and philosopher Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) argued, "Negro nations" submitted to slavery since they "have little [that is essentially] human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals..."

Even "tolerant" Ottomans perpetuated slavery through tradition and religion---and lacked an abolitionist movement, write Ehud Toledano and Turkish historian Y.H. Erdem.

Ottomans also manufactured and traded eunuchs--boys castrated throughout southern Europe, North Africa and the Near East to maintain large Ottoman harems for the upper classes. Following "total removal of testicles and penis," eunuchs suffered extensive hemorrhaging and death rates upwards of 90% in sub-Saharan and west-central Africa.

Every Middle East scholar and library should own this book.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

I highly recommend the Deluxe Then and Now Bible Maps for homeschool use! The CD-ROM allows you to print out maps for more than one student and can be used for many different grade levels! We used them as templates to create our own poster-sized overlay maps!

This is good to see the than and now of the middle east area of the bible.

This book has been an excellent help in my Bible study, as it helps me locate the area I am reading about in the Bible and shows on the map overlay what that country is called now.
Highly recommended.

This is a great tool for any student of the Bible. It's helpful for personal study, preparing presentations or teaching lectures. Having the CD along with the hard copy is most helpful for adapting the content to fit one's needs. Another great thing are the overlays with present day boundaries. This helps one put the Bible stories into our context.

The contents of the book and the CD has been published in detail by another reviewer so no need to repeat it here. But the one thing I wondered about is the selection of maps. While there are 40 or so maps, there are some maps that I wish there were at least twice as many. I was expecting more thorough coverage, perhaps not as detailed as in Aharoni's Carta Bible Atlas, but more of the basic stuff. For example I would like to see more on David's travels, Elijah and Elisha, Jeremiah, siege of Jerusalem, minor prophets, etc.

However, it is a good tool and I would recommend it. The fact that it includes multiple media is worth the money.

The historical facts presented, with overlays of present-day situations are extremely useful for Bible study and teaching. The JPGs of the maps save so much of time in preparing notes and presentations.

The other reviewers have made the points that I would have liked to have made. I have read every significant book that has been written on the Egyptian economy in the last 20 years, and this is better than all of them. By skillfully combining acute technical analysis, the best available data, and insider knowledge of the thinking of international agencies and Egyptian policymakers, this book sets the standard by which all subsequent studies of the Egyptian economy will be judged.

This book examines the chief issues that Egyptian policymakers faced during the period starting with the Free Officers' revolution in July 1952 to the end of the Second Millenium (although there are occasional references to events up to 2002). The emphasis is on durable, structural issues, many of which continue to resonate with policymakers.
Readers looking for a detailed account of events on the lines of "this happened, then that happened" may be disappointed. Ikram's technique is to sketch out broad periods that shared major similarities and were largely affected by the same important economic events, eg, the period of the nationalizations and Arab socialism; the infitah or Open Door policy and the influx of oil revenues, worker remittances, foreign aid; the period of falling oil prices, squeezed resources, and major debt reschedulings; and the era of stabilization and the beginnings of significant structural reform, at least in the area of privatizing many of the public enterprises. He then examines the most important issues and questions that policymakers had to deal with during these periods. The emphasis is mainly on macroeconomic issues and policies. These are analyzed using tools of modern economic analysis, and supplemented by interviews with Egyptian policymakers (to see the compulsions that they were under) and from documents and discussions with representatives of the main providers of financial support to Egypt. A particularly fine chapter on what Egypt needs to do to sustain growth in the next 20 years or so rounds off the book.
The data in the book are more reliable than in any other study of the Egyptian economy, since Ikram has had continuous access to the data banks of the World Bank (the book's blurb says he is a former director of that organization), and of the International Monetary Fund. He also has had access to a considerable body of studies and other material from Egyptian ministries, the Central Bank of Egypt, and the Egyptian statistical agency. The book is written in a clear style, with a welcome touch of humor. In addition to appealing to students of Egypt and the Middle East, the book should provide excellent supplementary reading for courses in economic development and in economic policymaking.
This book is apparently the first in a new series from Routledge on Middle Eastern economies. It will be a very hard act to follow.

This book is a model of what an interesting country economic study should be. The author has the perfect credentials: a long association with Egypt, a previous book on the subject, access to the leading Egyptian economic policymakers, access to the data bases and analyses of the World Bank and the IMF (as director of the World Bank's Egypt department) sound training in economics (affiliation with Cambridge and Harvard Universities), and the ability to write fluently. The book, therefore, is informed by acute technical analysis and pertinent personal anecdote. Excellent.

I have monitored the Egyptian economy for a major international bank for almost 20 years and advised the donor organizations of the most important western country on economic developments in Egypt for nearly ten. I wish that a book of this caliber had been available earlier. It is a cut above anything else written on the subject. It analyzes the major issues, goes behind the scenes to examine the actions of policymakers, maintains a balanced treatment of the shortcomings both of Egyptian policymakers and of the donors (such as the IMF, the World Bank, and USAID), examines weaknesses in the data, and presents sensible and practical advice on strategy and policy, including required improvements in the functioning of key institutions. The book is written clearly, and the message of even the more technical chapters comes through easily. It should be required reading for everyone who has to deal with the Egyptian economy or has an interest in it.

In the 1980s, as a post-graduate student in Middle East studies, I read Khalid Ikram's earlier book Egypt: Economic Management in a Period of Transition (Johns Hopkins University Press). My Cambridge University professor described it as "outstanding." Now Ikram has written another outstanding work.
This book examines economic policymaking in Egypt in the period 1952 to 2000. The book focuses on the more durable issues that policymakers confronted during this period, rather than (to quote Ikram) "on a day to day chronology or on quotidian details." The issues are covered in chapters dealing with investment and productivity, the balance of payments, public finance, the capital market and monetary policy, the labor force and employment, and poverty and income distribution, in addition to three chapters that cover broader issues of political economy.
There is an excellent final chapter on what Egypt needs to do in order to sustain growth in the future, that, in addition to dealing with questions connected with an outward looking strategy provides an in-depth analysis of institutional issues, such as the bureaucracy, the commercial judicial system, the system of taxation, shortcomings in the provision of trained labor, the cost to the environment of economic growth, the constraints imposed by the availability of Nile water, and how the present system of planning and economic management is increasingly being hemmed in by globalization and privatization, and will probably have to be replaced by a more flexible method of indicative planning.
Ikram, a former Director of the World Bank's Egypt department, clearly enjoys unparalleled access to Egyptian policymakers, and the book contains insights from interviews with several Ministers responsible for economic policy. He also quotes from Cabinet studies, as well as from studies by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The book is a veritable tour de force, and I recommend it highly to anyone interested in the development of Egypt and of the Middle East.

Occasionally you come across a great book by a great author and after reading 10-15 pages you realize that you could never write a novel like this, the prose, the detail, the character development are simply outstanding. After finishing the book you sit and reflect on it a bit and recognize that it has, in some greater or lesser manner, changed your world view forever. The novel has left you with images you will never forget. Elias Khoury's novel Gate of the Sun is this type of novel. Future generations will speak of Khoury in the same breathe with Zola, Dickens, and Dostoevsky.

Gate of the Sun is a story about the Nakba (or Catastrophe) that occurred in 1948 when the state of Israel was formed and the Palestinian people were scattered to the winds: some to life as second class citizens in Israel, many forced into ghettos in Gaza and the West Bank, and many other scattered throughout Lebanon, Jordan, and rest of the Muslim world. The story begins as a famous Palestinian freedom fighter lay in a coma dying in a hospital outside Beirut. A close friend sits with him day and night and spends the next seven months recounting stories from their lives. What follows is a recounting of the Palestinian experience from the Nakba through the '67 war, Black September, the Lebanon War, and the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. We learn about life in refugee camps, the struggle of the freedom fighters, how the Israelis drove the Palestinians out of their villages and homes before and after '48. In short, we learn about the peregrinations and vicissitudes of the Palestinian people.

This story isn't told in a linear fashion. There are jumps in both time and space as various episodes in both characters lives are revisted, and stories that were told to them by others recounted. We learn about all aspects of the Palestinian condition, big and small. The tales range from domestic disputes, love affairs, and parent-children stories to tragic tales of expulsion in '48 and genocide in '82. One of the great strengths of this book is that it is not simply a paean to the Palestinians. Khoury recounts many episodes that are not particularly flattering to the Palestinians.

This is not an easy book to read. Although the style is very different, I would compare it to the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in that it will take a bit of discipline to get through (this is definitely not a beach read). The only negative comment I can make about this book is that it is, in some ways, too bad that this book is so difficult to work through. I wish that this novel was more approachable by the average reader in the United States (not that Khoury was necessarily writing for these people). Any Westerner who reads this book cannot possibly look at the Arab-Israeli conflict in the same light. We have been conditioned to view the Israelis as the victims, after reading this book, you would be hard pressed to hold this view ever again.

Finally, on one quasi-political note, this novel also explained to me why the Palestinians have been so adamant about retaining the right of return in their negociations with the Israelis. I could never understand why they held onto this so tightly, but after reading this novel, you'll completely understand.

Bottom line is that this is one of the most detailed, well written novels I have ever read and I think that it compares favorably with the best novels written in any language. There are so many unforgettable images in this novel that you'll be shell-shocked when you finish it. Not a trivial undertaking, but you'll be richly rewarded if you take this journey.

Really a wonderful read - Khoury gives us the people inside the statistics. Reading "700,000 refugees" doesn't make the average person feel much, but Gate of the Sun gives us the individual faces and stories that make it all real. Other reviewers mentioned the artifice in the structure; I found it a touch annoying at first, then very appropriate as the book went along. Given the quality of the novel and the importance of the topic, I am surprised this novel has received only five reviews - are so few people reading this book?

This is an extraordinary story, essentially a personalized account of the history of the Palestinians of Galilee since the Zionist immigrations -- certainly, after the genocide of the Jews in the 1940s, the cruelest assault on a people in the 20th century (though the Armenian genocide too is right up there if one is counting), and it continues today in all its horror. The story is hung on an initially irritating conceit, one man's monologue as he cares for a mentor who has suffered a stroke and is brain dead. The protagonist imagines that his charge can hear and comprehend him. But as the story progresses, the immediacy of the reality of the intertwining biographies and the awful -- and often beautiful -- story they tell is so engaging that the irritation passes. But what also makes this novel extraordinary is that it is told without rancor -- not that hatred wasn't swirling around and everpresent. The people are real, that world is real, the suffering and death are real. It is this, and the opening of a window on that world heretofore glimpsed only on the news, that is the beauty of this book. There were occasional and brief what seemed to me trite pop-philosophical digressions, but they did not seriously affect the power of the reading. Some episodes seem to be present to emphasize that the author is not anti-Jewish, but they feel contrived. In this feverish situation it is no doubt a good thing to emphasize an author's rejection of anti-Semitic prejudice, but one would hope the author could find a way that feels as real as the rest of the book. Well, truth to tell, there was one subplot that stretched credulity in the interest of creating an artful story. Nonetheless, this is a truly powerful book, and the reality of that world comes through despite the occasional novelistic artifice. How to right the wrongs and avoid further horrors for either peoples! But Gate of the Sun is a resolutely non-political novel about individuals -- largely unheard from individuals caught up in the maelstrom of the 20th century's awful story.

Elias Khoury weaves a multitude of stories of people, some good, some less so, all flawed in their various ways, into a narrative that makes up the story of a people. One can recognize and identify with the human condition and struggles of each of those individuals, and yet through Khoury's eyes one can also see the whole of the society as it suffers the destruction from being uprooted and exiled by outside forces.

Not just about Palestinians - but about humanity everywhere.

This is a sadly moving, if not depressing book. It is very well-written and tells the saddest of stories, the rip-off and expulsion of a people from their homes and their lands. I found it fascinating and learned from it although I am an Arabist long familiar with the subject matter. I would consider this a must reading for any American who truly wants to understand and come to his/her own conclusions about the on-going crisis in the Middle East. It is for any interested person who is unwilling to swallow the party line as put forward by the zionist entity and its lackeys.

This book is a gem! It is wonderful, touching, and really easy to read. I have already recommend the book to folks I just know will love it.

Deborah, I read the entire book. It fits my situation with my family really close. It was like you were looking into our living room the morning of November 10. Your book has given me insight into some of what is coming next in our life. As hard as it will be, at least I can prepare myself for the next few months. The book let us into your home, your sorrow, hurt, anger, grief. It puts your whole life in print. I hope others gain as much as I did.

Amazing healing powers. I lost my nephew in July,2006. It was comforting to know how other people greve the loss of our brave soldiers. I too have seen a Red tailed hawk in the garden behind my sister's house. I, too hope it was Tom telling us he was near us. This book is a powerful story of one family search for healing. I recommend this book to any one who has lost a child, or to anyone who wants to read about the power of love in healing our hearts.

I haven't received it yet. I just realized that this is the book that I ordered in October and I have not gotten it yet. I have been billed and paid for it but did not get it. The five star rating is an anticipated rating if and when I get it.

I bought this book for my husband. He said it is the best book he ever read.

In another book called The Commanding Self Idries Shah says that the desired effect of these Teaching stories depends upon someone not knowing the intended effect. And this in a Teaching narrative that next tells us that the person he said this to, an editor for one of his books, then asked for an introduction explaining the intended effect of the stories. If you don't think thats funny, you probably won't like this book. There are no explanations here, no descriptions of spirituality, or theories about personal development. What is here, is very finely crafted Teaching stories and narratives that Shah collected from both oral and written sources, adding some of his own when "Sufic comprehensiveness demanded it". The stories are beautiful, challenging, disturbing, and often banal. And then one reads them again and finds that they are none of these things; that those were simply some of your own personal reactions to them. This book is a remarkable acheivement; a mirror for what can't be written down.

"If you want special illumination, look upon the human face:
See clearly within laughter the Essence of Ultimate Truth." Jalaluddin Rumi



The Dimensions of Sufi Learning:
The seven dimensions of Sufi Learning, as ascribed by Idries Shah, in "The Fountain of Endless Learning," are described as :
- A common spring that feeds the inner circle at the core of the world's great religions.
- The "old-fashioned virtues" of simplicity, self-reliance, and sensible attitudes.
- The second dimension of Higher Learning; flexibility.
- The third: thinking with the Heart and learning Sufi wisdom from Al-Ghazali mysticism.
- Releasing the sacred longing of the Heart.
- The leap from the old to the new, discovering the unknown.
- Insight into skill and poise in daily life by Schopenhauer (proclamations of classic wisdom 'Sophia', whose analogical arguments are often used in reasoning about moral issues).

Doris Lessing On Shah:
"The Elephant in the Dark", the little fable about people who feel different parts of an elephant, all believing that what they feel is the whole beast. Each of these, and later books, are a rich mix of tales, ideas, verses, jokes, and at first people's reactions, my own included, illustrated Shah's remark that we should not expect Sufis to teach in an expected manner. With each book there was a slight initial feeling of let-down, even bewilderment, and this was because the words 'Teacher', 'School', 'Teaching', evoke expectations of a person standing in front of a class and saying, "For the next hour I shall instruct you in so-and-so. Now: a, b, c, d..." In a Sufi school you first learn what is being taught and, above all, how. Sufi books are designed to be read differently from our usual habit: quietly, non-argumentatively, willing to absorb what is there, noticing how a question in one part may be answered in another, observing juxtapositions and intimations of the unexpected, above all not interposing screens of 'received ideas' between the author and one's best self. Perhaps this is what Goethe meant when he said he was a very old man and had only just learned how to read."

The magic Monastery:
This book differs from its preceding peers, where Shah assembled figurative fables and tales that make vivid the instructional sayings of middle eastern mystical sages, gathered from a millennia of Oral and written sources. here shah, as a master Sufi, complements through his own experience the ancient tradition with some of his own teaching in the same traditional form started by the Coptic Desert Fathers, and The Hassidics in the Middle ages.

Idries Shah & Sufi Writings:
Idries Shah was born in 1924 in North India, of an ancient family that has always produced remarkable people, influential in their communities in the world. His family holds a special place in the community of the Sufis. Idries Shah's father, Sirdar Iqbal Ali Shah, was a diplomat who worked with cultural organizations that bridged the gap between East and West. He wrote books, still valuable and very entertaining, compilations of tales and adventure, like The Golden Caravan, some directly informational, like The Spirit of the East, The Sufis, The Way of the Sufi, Tales of the Dervishes, The pleasantries of Mulla Nasrudin, The Commanding Self, and Learning how to learn: Spirituality in the Sufi way, within a few dozen books which has characterized his Sufi journey and writings.

This book not only entertains, it educates as well. The tales and vignettes in it are called Teaching Stories because teaching is precisely what they do. They teach the reader how to escape from the confines and limitations of usual, normal thinking processes. They do so by showing the reader to himself or herself, reflected in the actions and motivations of the characters in the tales. The reader can learn how to operate more free of bias. The effect is similar to suddenly coming across riches, the riches buried within ourselves. Repeated readings reveal more layers and depths, each guiding the reader to greater understanding and freedom. 'The Magic Monastery' is, for these reasons, quite a catch.

About Sufism, it has been said that "in the West it's become very complicated because spiritual authority is understood on the wrong levels."

Shah's delivery is often times directed toward certain constructs of the ego within this reader's psyche. Painfulness is almost always imminent because he is capable in pointing out the fractures of this reader's brittle comprehension of Life. He points out how I can be my own worst enemy that keeps me from taking necessary steps needed to live a healthy and fulfilling life. In this sense, his tone can, in some instances, become characteristic of a stern father, a strict sensei, or a tough coach helping me steer clear of self-imagined obstructions. These moments aren't really ever pleasant, as they tend to turn my insides, and I feel singed. But, with some help, I am able to understand that this is an essential prerequisite for transformation in the Sufi way; therefore, I choose to understand these types of stern approaches in terms of "tough loving" that help bring equilibrium to my egoic ratios (inflation:deflation), and step in the direction of freeing myself of myself.

The Sufi stories within the Magic Monastery are, for me, the best times of diligent reading and mindful inner listening. I definitely become more aware of any inner voices compelling reactions and responses. Self-punishing? or self-rewarding? You make what you want of it.

Do you want to get to know yourself? That's what I did. Each of these stories is an opportunity to discover another aspect of your personality. Like me, you will find stories which you will like or find amusing, perhaps others that will annoy or startle you. Each is a mine of possibility that enriches with subsequent readings. Spend time with Idries Shah... and get to know You.

Ms. Burleigh's Mirage is an excellent account of the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon's army, and the French intellectual Savants that accompanied the military on this ill-conceived and failed military expedition. The accounts of the physical trials, successes, and failures of the Savants is profoundly interesting.

Ms. Burleigh's depth of research on the subject was very good. She provides many detailed accounts and examples, taken from first hand journals, that provide the reader with first-hand accounts of a very trying period in French and Egyptian history.

For those interested in this period of colonial French history; interested in the Egyptian art, architecture and culture; and the practical application of 18th century science to the infancy of archaeology, this is a must read for you.

This is a terrific book. I highly recommend it to almost anyone. All you need is an interest in history or science or adventure or foreign affairs or botany or ancient Egypt. On many levels, this book is fun and informative. And it's all true. For flavor, it's like Indiana Jones meets Albert Einstein meets James Audubon. It's hard to put down.

The story concerns Napoleon's foray into Egypt in 1799. Ostensibly it was to expand scientific knowledge of this ancient and mysterious land. In reality, it was the start of the anticipated conquest and annexation of Egypt. As the British did with India (i.e., creating a far-east outpost), the French were hoping to do with Egypt. But things did not go exactly as planned.

In other books on the subject, the focus is on the military aspect of the expedition. About 50,000 soldiers and sailors accompanied Napoleon. In Mirage, the author (Nina Burleigh) focuses on the 151 scientists (or savants) who also accompanied him. Here, the savants are the "heroes." We learn of their trials, tribulations, and successes.

Each chapter concerns a different savant and their respective expertise: botany, math, medicine, engineering, art, etc. Through the eyes of learned gents, we learn about Egypt, the parochial views of 19th century Europe, and the folly of imperialism. It's a terrific perspective that is told in an easily accessible style.

Burleigh keeps up the suspense. She covers many academic fields but does not overwhelm a reader. It's a fun read and you can't help but learn. For example, she describes the savants' discoveries while stuck in desert sands. She puts discoveries in the context of the time and shows how some still apply, like Fourier's math work.

The only knock on the book, and it is minor, is that it lacks a map of the region. Readers should print one before starting the book.

Though I normally don't read nonfiction, Mirage immediately drew me in with its vivid descriptions of this strange, historic expedition. Aptly titled, the book chronicles Napoleon's disastrous foray into Egypt in pursuit of some exotic, orientalist fantasy that never existed in reality. Aping Alexander, Napoleon took with him some of the best and most adventurous French intellectuals of the time. These scientists and academics, or "savants," become the core of the narrative -- distinct and eccentric characters that I followed with interest. Some of the situations the savants found themselves in were truly surreal -- but despite the hardships and suffering they endured during the journey, they were able to expand their fields of study -- and even discover the Rosetta Stone!

I knew very little about this expedition -- or this period in history -- but the book is enormously informative, with loads of facts as well as being entertaining, and in spite of myself I learned a lot! As I read I kept thinking of our current fiasco in Iraq, which seems to repeat in so many ways the arrogance and ignorance of Napoleon and his French soldiers. So the book is amazingly timely as well.

A great read and a well-written, fascinating book! I recommend it highly.

Nina Burleigh paints a vivid picture of the curious minds of the scientists who accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, a land beyond their imagination.

The scientists' desire to understand what they were seeing and to map, catalogue, paint--and in some ways, dominate--this exotic place feels real. Though the cast of characters is large, and occasionally unwieldy, the book draws fine portraits of individuals, many of whom are worthy of their own biographies. And Mirage projects a sense of excitement about learning that is contagious.

Many people have read about Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and of the many scientists and engineers who accompanied him. However, many history books usually allot but a few pages perhaps to this important event, which led, among other things, to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. The author of this book has done an excellent job of focusing entirely on Napoleon's Egyptian campaign with particular emphasis on the many "savants" who were charged with studying and documenting this ancient land. The many hardships that they endured are vividly described, as are their relationships with the French military and the local inhabitants. The author's writing style is accessible, friendly, authoritative and most engaging, making this a work that is difficult to put down. This account indeed forms an excellent link between the decaying ruins of an ancient civilization and the birth of modern Egyptology. This is a book that can be enjoyed by everyone, but history buffs, particularly those with a fascination for Egypt, will likely relish it the most.