Book picks similar to
Jerusalem: A Biblical and Historical Case for the Jewish Capital by Jay Sekulow
history
non-fiction
israel
christian
Parkland: Birth of a Movement
Dave Cullen - 2019
David Hogg called out Adult America. The uprising had begun. Cameron Kasky immediately recruited a colorful band of theatre kids and rising activists and brought them together in his living room to map out a movement. Four days after escaping Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, two dozen extraordinary kids announced the audacious March for Our Lives. A month later, it was the fourth largest protest in American history.Dave Cullen, who has been reporting on the epidemic of school shootings for two decades, takes us along on the students’ nine-month odyssey to the midterms and beyond. With unrivaled access to their friends and families, meetings and homes, he pulls back the curtain to reveal intimate portraits of the quirky, playful organizers that have taken the nation by storm. Cullen brings us onto the bus for the Road to Change tour showing us how these kids seized an opportunity. They hit the highway to organize the young activist groups mushrooming across America in their image. Rattled but undeterred, they pressed on in gun country even as adversaries armed with assault weapons tailed them across Texas and Utah trying to scare them off. The Parkland students are genuinely candid about their experiences. We see them cope with shattered friendships and PTSD, along with the normal day-to-day struggles of school, including AP exams and college acceptances. Yet, with the idealism of youth they are mostly bubbling with fresh ideas. As victims refusing victimhood, they continue to devise clever new tactics to stir their generation to action while building a powerhouse network to match the NRA’s. This spell-binding book is a testament to change and a perceptive examination of a pivotal moment in American culture. After two decades of adult hand-wringing, the MFOL kids are mapping a way out. They see a long road ahead, a generational struggle to save every kid of every color from the ravages of gun violence in America. Parkland is a story of staggering empowerment and hope, told through the wildly creative and wickedly funny voices of a group of remarkable kids.
The Lion's Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Day War
Steven Pressfield - 2014
The Soviet-equipped Egyptian Army has amassed a thousand tanks on the nation’s southern border. Syrian heavy guns are shelling her from the north. To the east, Jordan and Iraq are moving mechanized brigades and fighter squadrons into position to attack. Egypt’s President Nasser has declared that the Arab force’s objective is the destruction of Israel.” The rest of the world turns a blind eye to the new nation’s desperate peril.June 10, 1967. The Arab armies have been routed, ground divisions wiped out, air forces totally destroyed. Israel’s citizen-soldiers have seized the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan. The land under Israeli control has tripled. Her charismatic defense minister, Moshe Dayan, has entered the Lion’s Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem to stand with the paratroopers who have liberated Judaism’s holiest site—the Western Wall, part of the ruins of Solomon’s temple, which has not been in Jewish hands for nineteen hundred years.It is one of the most unlikely and astonishing military victories in history.Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with veterans of the war—fighter and helicopter pilots, tank commanders and Recon soldiers, paratroopers, as well as women soldiers, wives, and others—bestselling author Steven Pressfield tells the story of the Six Day War as you’ve never experienced it before: in the voices of the young men and women who battled not only for their lives but for the survival of a Jewish state, and for the dreams of their ancestors.By turns inspiring, thrilling, and heartbreaking, The Lion’s Gate is both a true tale of military courage under fire and a journey into the heart of what it means to fight for one’s people.
The Spy Who Couldn't Spell: A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code, and the FBI's Hunt for America's Stolen Secrets
Yudhijit Bhattacharjee - 2016
Before Edward Snowden’s infamous data breach, the largest theft of government secrets was committed by an ingenious traitor whose intricate espionage scheme and complex system of coded messages were made even more baffling by his dyslexia. His name is Brian Regan, but he came to be known as The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell. In December of 2000, FBI Special Agent Steven Carr of the bureau’s Washington, D.C., office received a package from FBI New York: a series of coded letters from an anonymous sender to the Libyan consulate, offering to sell classified United States intelligence. The offer, and the threat, were all too real. A self-proclaimed CIA analyst with top secret clearance had information about U.S. reconnaissance satellites, air defense systems, weapons depots, munitions factories, and underground bunkers throughout the Middle East. Rooting out the traitor would not be easy, but certain clues suggested a government agent with a military background, a family, and a dire need for money. Leading a diligent team of investigators and code breakers, Carr spent years hunting down a dangerous spy and his cache of stolen secrets. In this fast-paced true-life spy thriller, Yudhijit Bhattacharjee reveals how the FBI unraveled Regan’s strange web of codes to build a case against a man who nearly collapsed America's military security.
They
Sarfraz Manzoor - 2021
It is THE book. . . . Absolutely not to be missed.' - Matthew d'AnconaSarfraz Manzoor grew up in a working-class Pakistani Muslim family in Luton - where he was raised to believe that they were different, they had an alien culture and they would never accept him. They were white people.In today's deeply divided Britain we are often told they are different, they have a different culture and values and they will never accept this country. This time they are Muslims.Weaving together history, reportage and memoir, Sarfraz Manzoor journeys around Britain in search of the roots of this division - from the fear that Islam promotes violence, to the suspicion that Muslims wish to live segregated lives, to the belief that Islam is fundamentally misogynistic.THEY is also Manzoor's search for a more positive future. We hear stories from Islamic history of a faith more tolerant and progressive than commonly assumed, and stories of hope from across the country which show how we might bridge the chasm of mutual mistrust.THEY is at once fiercely urgent, resolutely hopeful and profoundly personal. It is the story of modern, Muslim Britain as it has never been told.'Humane, heart breaking and hopeful' - Kirsty Wark'Extraordinarily researched and courageously confronting, Sarfraz Manzoor writes with a rare blend of historical depth and personal authenticity. Profoundly personal and refreshingly honest, They tells the urgent and often untold story of Muslim Britain.' - David Lammy MP
Unfreedom of the Press
Mark R. Levin - 2019
Levin shows how those entrusted with news reporting today are destroying freedom of the press from within: “not government oppression or suppression,” he writes, but self-censorship, group-think, bias by omission, and passing off opinion, propaganda, pseudo-events, and outright lies as news. With the depth of historical background for which his books are renowned, Levin takes the reader on a journey through the early American patriot press, which proudly promoted the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, followed by the early decades of the Republic during which newspapers around the young country were open and transparent about their fierce allegiance to one political party or the other. It was only at the start of the Progressive Era and the twentieth century that the supposed “objectivity of the press” first surfaced, leaving us where we are today: with a partisan party-press overwhelmingly aligned with a political ideology but hypocritically engaged in a massive untruth as to its real nature.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
Hannah Arendt - 1963
This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt’s postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informative—an unflinching look at one of the most unsettling and unsettled issues of the twentieth century that remains hotly debated to this day.
Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers
Gus Russo - 2006
Presenting startling, never-before-seen revelations about such famous members as Jules Stein, Joe Glaser, Ronald Reagan, Lew Wasserman, David Bazelon & John Jacob Factor--as well as infamous, scrupulously low-profile members--Russo pulls the lid off of a half-century of criminal infiltration into American business, politics & society. At the heart of it is Sidney "The Fixer" Korshak, who from the 1940's until his death in the '90s, wasn't only the most powerful lawyer in the world, according to the FBI, but the enigmatic player behind countless 20th century power mergers, political deals & organized crime chicaneries. As the underworld's primary link to the corporate upperworld, his backroom dominance & talent for anonymity will likely never be equaled. As Supermob proves, neither will his story.Cast of charactersPrefaceThe lawyer from LawndaleFrom Lawndale to the Seneca to the underworldBirds of a feather Kaddish for CaliforniaThe future is in real estate"Hell, that's what you had to do in those days to get by"Scenes from Hollywood, part 1Jimmy, Bobby & SidneyForty years in the desert The kingmakers: Paul, Lew & Ronnie in CaliforniaThe new frontier Bistro days "He could never walk away from those people"Scenes from Hollywood, part 2"A sunny place for shady people"Coming under attack From Hoffa to HollywoodFrom Dutch sandwiches to Dutch ReaganAiring dirty laundry & laundering dirty money Pursued by the Fourth Estate The true untouchablesLegacies Appendices: A-Supermob investments/B-Pritzker holdings/C-Ziffren-Greenberg-Genis documentsNotesBibliographyIndex
In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire
Tom Holland - 2012
No less significant than the collapse of the Roman Republic or the Persian invasion of Greece, the evolution of the Arab empire is one of the supreme narratives of ancient history, a story dazzlingly rich in drama, character, and achievement. Just like the Romans, the Arabs came from nowhere to carve out a stupefyingly vast dominion—except that they achieved their conquests not over the course of centuries as the Romans did but in a matter of decades. Just like the Greeks during the Persian wars, they overcame seemingly insuperable odds to emerge triumphant against the greatest empire of the day—not by standing on the defensive, however, but by hurling themselves against all who lay in their path.
All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
Stephen Kinzer - 2003
The victim was Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran. Although the coup seemed a success at first, today it serves as a chilling lesson about the dangers of foreign intervention.In this book, veteran New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer gives the first full account of this fateful operation. His account is centered around an hour-by-hour reconstruction of the events of August 1953, and concludes with an assessment of the coup's "haunting and terrible legacy."Operation Ajax, as the plot was code-named, reshaped the history of Iran, the Middle East, and the world. It restored Mohammad Reza Shah to the Peacock Throne, allowing him to impose a tyranny that ultimately sparked the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The Islamic Revolution, in turn, inspired fundamentalists throughout the Muslim world, including the Taliban and terrorists who thrived under its protection."It is not far-fetched," Kinzer asserts in this book, "to draw a line from Operation Ajax through the Shah's repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York."Drawing on research in the United States and Iran, and using material from a long-secret CIA report, Kinzer explains the background of the coup and tells how it was carried out. It is a cloak-and-dagger story of spies, saboteurs, and secret agents. There are accounts of bribes, staged riots, suitcases full of cash, and midnight meetings between the Shah and CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt, who was smuggled in and out of the royal palace under a blanket in the back seat of a car. Roosevelt,the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, was a real-life James Bond in an era when CIA agents operated mainly by their wits. After his first coup attempt failed, he organized a second attempt that succeeded three days later.The colorful cast of characters includes the terrified young Shah, who fled his country at the first sign of trouble; General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, father of the Gulf War commander and the radio voice of "Gang Busters," who flew to Tehran on a secret mission that helped set the coup in motion; and the fiery Prime Minister Mossadegh, who outraged the West by nationalizing the immensely profitable Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The British, outraged by the seizure of their oil company, persuaded President Dwight Eisenhower that Mossadegh was leading Iran toward Communism. Eisenhower and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain became the coup's main sponsors.Brimming with insights into Middle Eastern history and American foreign policy, this book is an eye-opening look at an event whose unintended consequences - Islamic revolution and violent anti-Americanism--have shaped the modern world. As the United States assumes an ever-widening role in the Middle East, it is essential reading.
Reimagining Pakistan: Transforming a Dysfunctional Nuclear State
Husain Haqqani - 2018
Indeed, Pakistan has meant different things to different people since its birth seventy years ago. Armed with nuclear weapons and dominated by the military and militants, it is variously described around the world as ‘dangerous’, ‘unstable’, ‘a terrorist incubator’ and ‘the land of the intolerant’.Much of Pakistan’s dysfunction is attributable to an ideology tied to religion and to hostility with the country out of which it was carved out – India. But 95 per cent of Pakistan’s 210 million people were born after Partition, as Pakistanis, and cannot easily give up on their home.In his new book, Husain Haqqani, one of the most important commentators on Pakistan in the world today, calls for a bold re-conceptualization of the country. Reimagining Pakistan offers a candid discussion of Pakistan’s origins and its current failings, with suggestions for reconsidering its ideology, and identifies a national purpose greater than the rivalry with India.
Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power
Rachel Maddow - 2012
Neither Jefferson nor the other Founders could ever have envisioned the modern national security state, with its tens of thousands of "privateers"; its bloated Department of Homeland Security; its rusting nuclear weapons, ill-maintained and difficult to dismantle; and its strange fascination with an unproven counterinsurgency doctrine. Written with bracing wit and intelligence, Rachel Maddow's Drift argues that we've drifted away from America's original ideals and become a nation weirdly at peace with perpetual war, with all the financial and human costs that entails. To understand how we've arrived at such a dangerous place, Maddow takes us from the Vietnam War to today's war in Afghanistan, along the way exploring the disturbing rise of executive authority, the gradual outsourcing of our war-making capabilities to private companies, the plummeting percentage of American families whose children fight our constant wars for us, and even the changing fortunes of G.I. Joe. She offers up a fresh, unsparing appraisal of Reagan's radical presidency. Ultimately, she shows us just how much we stand to lose by allowing the priorities of the national security state to overpower our political discourse. Sensible yet provocative, dead serious yet seriously funny, Drift will reinvigorate a "loud and jangly" political debate about how, when, and where to apply America's strength and power--and who gets to make those decisions.From the Hardcover edition.
Can We Talk About Israel?: A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted
Daniel Sokatch - 2021
As the head of the New Israel Fund, which is dedicated to equality and democracy for all Israelis, not just Jews, Sokatch is supremely well-versed on the Israeli conflict.Can We Talk About Israel? is the story of that conflict, and of why so many people feel so strongly about it without actually understanding it very well at all. It is an attempt to grapple with a century-long struggle between two peoples that both perceive themselves as (and indeed are) victims. And it's an attempt to explain why Israel (and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) inspires such extreme feelings-why it seems like Israel is the answer to "what is wrong with the world" for half the people in it, and "what is right with the world" for the other half.Complete with engaging illustrations by Christopher Noxon, Can We Talk About Israel? is an easy-to-read yet penetrating and original look at the history and basic contours of one of the most complicated conflicts in the world.
From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine
Joan Peters - 1984
Book by Peters, Joan
You Have the Right to Remain Innocent
James Duane - 2016
Duane became a viral sensation thanks to a 2008 lecture outlining the reasons why you should never agree to answer questions from the police—especially if you are innocent and wish to stay out of trouble with the law. In this timely, relevant, and pragmatic new book, he expands on that presentation, offering a vigorous defense of every citizen’s constitutionally protected right to avoid self-incrimination. Getting a lawyer is not only the best policy, Professor Duane argues, it’s also the advice law-enforcement professionals give their own kids.Using actual case histories of innocent men and women exonerated after decades in prison because of information they voluntarily gave to police, Professor Duane demonstrates the critical importance of a constitutional right not well or widely understood by the average American. Reflecting the most recent attitudes of the Supreme Court, Professor Duane argues that it is now even easier for police to use your own words against you. This lively and informative guide explains what everyone needs to know to protect themselves and those they love.
America's Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires, Superpowers . . . and the Future of the United States
Cal Thomas - 2019
Our culture is increasingly immoral, the family structure is threatened from all sides, and government programs consistently overreach, creating massive debt.In this powerful and prophetic book, nationally syndicated columnist and trusted political commentator Cal Thomas offers a diagnosis of what exactly is wrong with the United States by drawing parallels to once-great empires and nations that declined into oblivion. Citing the historically proven 250-year pattern of how superpowers rise and fall, he predicts that America's expiration date is just around the corner and shows us how to escape their fate.Through biblical insights and hard-hitting truth, he reminds us that real change comes when America looks to God instead of Washington. Scripture, rather than politics, is the GPS he uses to point readers to the right road - a road of hope, life, and change. Because, he says, if we're willing to seek God first, learn from history, and make changes at the individual and community level, we can not only survive, but thrive, again.This powerful, timely, and much-needed perspective is a must-read for anyone who longs for a promising future for our great nation.