This third edition introduces a new co-author, Nancy M. Wingfield, and has been fully updated to take into account recent and ongoing developments in the region.

    Following on the success of his best-selling The Future of Freedom, Zakaria describes with equal prescience a world in which the United States will no longer dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm cultures. He sees the "rise of the rest"—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States understand and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.

    Poor people began to construct their own communities on unused urban lands, creating an infrastructure----roads, electricity, running water, garbage collection, and shelters----all their own. As the Iranian government attempted to evict these illegal settlers, they resisted----fiercely and ultimately successfully. This is the story of their economic and political strategies.

    Parsi uncovers the previously unknown story of American and Iranian negotiations during Obama's early years as president, the calculations behind the two nations' dealings, and the real reasons for their current stalemate. Contrary to prevailing opinion, Parsi contends that diplomacy has not been fully tried. For various reasons, Obama's diplomacy ended up being a single roll of the dice. It had to work either immediately—or not at all. Persistence and perseverance are keys to any negotiation. Neither Iran nor the U.S. had them in 2009.

    For good and for evil, religion is the single greatest influence in the world. We accept as self-evident that competing economic systems (capitalist or communist) or clashing political parties (Republican or Democratic) propose very different solutions to our planet's problems. So why do we pretend that the world's religious traditions are different paths to the same God? We blur the sharp distinctions between religions at our own peril, argues religion scholar Stephen Prothero, and it is time to replace naÏve hopes of interreligious unity with deeper knowledge of religious differences. In Religious Literacy, Prothero demonstrated how little Americans know about their own religious traditions and why the world's religions should be taught in public schools. Now, in God Is Not One, Prothero provides readers with this much-needed content about each of the eight great religions. To claim that all religions are the same is to misunderstand that each attempts to solve a different human problem. For example: –Islam: the problem is pride / the solution is submission –Christianity: the problem is sin / the solution is salvation –Confucianism: the problem is chaos / the solution is social order –Buddhism: the problem is suffering / the solution is awakening –Judaism: the problem is exile / the solution is to return to God Prothero reveals each of these traditions on its own terms to create an indispensable guide for anyone who wants to better understand the big questions human beings have asked for millennia—and the disparate paths we are taking to answer them today. A bold polemical response to a generation of misguided scholarship, God Is Not One creates a new context for understanding religion in the twenty-first century and disproves the assumptions most of us make about the way the world's religions work.

    From Simon & Schuster, The Shah's Last Ride is William Shawcross' unforgettable work of exile and American foreign policy.The acclaimed author of Sideshow, The Shah's Last Ride captures the behind-the-scenes drama of the Shah of Iran's strange journey into exile—and its crucial impact on American foreign policy and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini.

    "Remarkable...breathtaking in its scope and historical precision, this is highly recommended volume for both publivc and academic libraries.—Library Journal.

    Here he offers an unflinching account of the Arab-Israeli conflict, informed by his firsthand knowledge of the major characters and events.Clear-eyed and unsparing, Ben-Ami traces the twists and turns of the Middle East conflict and gives us behind-the-scenes accounts of the meetings in Oslo, Madrid, and Camp David. The author paints particularly trenchant portraits of key figures from Ben-Gurion to Bill Clinton. He is highly critical of both Ariel Sharon and the late Yasser Arafat, seeing Arafat's rejection of Clinton's peace plan as a crime against the Palestinian people. The author is also critical of President Bush's Middle East policy, which he calls a presumptuous grand strategy. Along the way, Ben-Ami highlights the many blunders on both sides, describing for instance how the great victory of the Six Day War launched many Israelis on a misbegotten messianic dream of controlling all the Biblical Jewish lands, which only served to make the Palestinian problem much worse. In contrast, it has only been when Israel has suffered setbacks that it has made moves towards peace. The best hope for the region, he concludes, is to create an international mandate in the Palestinian territories that would lead to the implementation of Clinton's two-state peace parameters.Scars of War, Wounds of Peace is a major work of history--with by far the most fair and balanced critique of Israel ever to come from one of its key officials. This paperback edition features a new Epilogue by the author featuring an analysis of the most recent events in the Israeli-Arab situation, from the disappearance of Ariel Sharon from public life to the emergence of Hamas and Israel's recent war against Hizballah. It is an absolute must-read for everyone who wants to understand the dynamics of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

    It's about the man who composed the Koran.Author F. W. Burleigh draws on an academic, investigative, and literary background to bring forth this penetrating look at the man behind it all. Burleigh’s interest in Islam was sparked by the events of 9/11. The questions guiding his studies were, “Why do Muslims do what they do? Why is there so much violence connected with this religion?” After a line-by-line scrutiny of 20,000 pages of the original literature of Islam, the author gives his blunt assessment in the title: It’s All About Muhammad.The book is in three parts. The first 12 chapters explore the epileptic fits that convinced Muhammad that he was in communion with God, explain the Koran and why he composed it the way he did, and show the humble origin of the Kabah, which only attained its cubic shape in the year A.D. 605 with Muhammad as a member of the construction crew. The book shows the magma chamber of hatred that formed in him due to traumatic early-life experience and tracks the emergence of his psychopathic nature. It exposes how he modified ideas he took from Judaism and Christianity to suit his grandiose idea of himself as the "last and final prophet," his intolerance of Meccan polytheistic beliefs, and finally his declaration of war against "all and sundry" who refused to accept him and his religion.In the second part, Muhammad's magma chamber of hatred erupts on the world. The book shows the creation of his al-qaeda--his base of operations in Yathrib (Medina) where he fled after the Meccans decided they had to kill him, his conflict with the Jewish tribes of Yathrib after they refused to accept him as their prophet; his genocide of the Jews including the beheading of the men of an entire tribe; the assassination of his critics; the battles and raids and orgies of rape, plunder, and slaughter; and finally his conquest of Mecca. Like a dramatic arc, these 18 chapters form Act II of a script that is still being played out today.In the final part, Muhammad's ruthless conquest of all of Arabia is presented. This section also gives an account of his numerous wives and the expansion of his wars beyond the confines of the Arabian peninsula. One of the final chapters explores his claim that he will be the first to be resurrected on the day of resurrection and that he will assist Allah in determining who goes to heaven and who stays in hell--part of the "breathtaking nonsense" of what Muhammad claimed about himself, as the author phrases it.What Muhammad created continues to wreak havoc on the world. It follows the script he wrote fourteen centuries ago. It is not sufficient any longer merely to raise the alarm about Islam--an ideology of submission to the will of a psychologically deformed and spiritually grotesque man. What needs to accompany the alarm is a solution, and this book offers a solution: It is a matter of an aggressive, relentless, and unapologetic exposure of the truth about Muhammad in every graphic form possible, from illustrated books to docudramas to full-length feature films. With its 25 illustrations, It's All About Muhammad offers itself as an example of the approach.The truth about Muhammad is a powerful weapon of self-defense that people must take up to oppose and ultimately push back what he created. It is a weapon within the reach of everyone.

    From his first political run-in in the first grade to his years working as presidential speechwriter for Jimmy Carter and top aide to Tip O'Neill, Matthews grew up loving his country and dreaming of his chance to protect it. As one of the most honest, brash, and in-your-face journalists on TV, he has finally gotten the chance. The host of television's Hardball and bestselling author of such classics as Hardball and Kennedy & Nixon, Matthews is a political cop who insists on the truth and nothing but. In this latest work, Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think, Chris Matthews is at his brilliant, blunt, bulldogged best. From the Cold War to the Clinton years, Matthews gives the straight-up account of what it means to be an American. Matthews tells us about his "God and Country" Catholic school education in Philadelphia complete with Cold War air-raid drills and his early enthusiasm for politics. He shares with us his life's adventures: two years in Africa with the Peace Corps, the challenge of running for Congress in his twenties, and his three decades deep in the "belly of the beast" of American politics. Matthews has made his name as a razor-sharp journalist who cross-examines the politicians in Washington and takes on the Los Angeles and New York elite who view America's heartland as "fly-over country." In Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think, Matthews rallies those who "work hard and play by the rules" and celebrates the wisdom learned from a U.S. Capitol policeman more than twenty years ago, "The little man loves his country, because it's all he's got." A hard-to-categorize maverick with an uncool love for his country, Matthews gives an irreverent look at who we are and whom we trust to lead us.

    He was an orphan who rose from poverty to become the first ruler of all of Arabia. He created a new religion, new methods of war and a new political system including a legal code, the Sharia. Mohammed was the world's greatest warrior. Today no one wages war in the name of Caesar, Alexander the Great, Napoleon or any other military leader. However, every year many people die because of Mohammed. After 1400 years, Islam is more powerful than it has ever been. Mohammed said that one day all of the world would live under his rule of law.To understand Islam, you must know the life of Mohammed. Every Muslim's desire is to live a life identical to his. His every word and deed are the perfect model for being a Muslim. Every Muslim is a Mohammedan. The religion of Islam is not about worshiping Allah; it about worshiping Allah exactly as Mohammed did. This book is unique. It is concise, but it is completely authoritative. The reference system allows you to verify all information.

    Today the stakes are even higher: such a war could break the back of America's strained superpower status. Challenging the daily clamor of U.S. saber rattling, Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett argue that America should renounce thirty years of failed strategy and engage with Iran—just as Nixon revolutionized U.S. foreign policy by going to Beijing and realigning relations with China.Former analysts in both the Bush and Clinton administrations, the Leveretts offer a uniquely informed account of Iran as it actually is today, not as many have caricatured it or wished it to be. They show that Iran's political order is not on the verge of collapse, that most Iranians still support the Islamic Republic, and that Iran's regional influence makes it critical to progress in the Middle East. Drawing on years of research and access to high-level officials, Going to Tehran explains how Iran sees the world and why its approach to foreign policy is hardly the irrational behavior of a rogue nation.A bold call for new thinking, the Leveretts' indispensable work makes it clear that America must "go to Tehran" if it is to avert strategic catastrophe.

    Professor Betts examines the arguments about what political, economic, social and military factors tend to cause war and whether such causes can be made obsolete.

    We go into the homes of suicide bombers and into street-to-street fighting with a battalion of marines. We meet Iraqi insurgents, an American captain who loses a quarter of his men in eight days, and a young soldier from Georgia on a rooftop at midnight reminiscing about his girlfriend back home. A car bomb explodes, bullets fly, and a mother cradles her blinded son.Like no other book, The Forever War allows us a visceral understanding of today’s battlefields and of the experiences of the people on the ground, warriors and innocents alike. It is a brilliant, fearless work, not just about America’s wars after 9/11, but ultimately about the nature of war itself.

    . . the only way to understand why so many Americans have decided to vote against their own economic and political interests" (Molly Ivins)Hailed as "dazzlingly insightful and wonderfully sardonic" (Chicago Tribune), "very funny and very painful" (San Francisco Chronicle), and "in a different league from most political books" (The New York Observer), What's the Matter with Kansas? unravels the great political mystery of our day: Why do so many Americans vote against their economic and social interests? With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank answers the riddle by examining his home state, Kansas-a place once famous for its radicalism that now ranks among the nation's most eager participants in the culture wars. Charting what he calls the "thirty-year backlash"-the popular revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment-Frank reveals how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans.A brilliant analysis-and funny to boot-What's the Matter with Kansas? is a vivid portrait of an upside-down world where blue-collar patriots recite the Pledge while they strangle their life chances; where small farmers cast their votes for a Wall Street order that will eventually push them off their land; and where a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs has managed to convince the country that it speaks on behalf of the People.