Details
| Size | | Length: | 471 pages | | Height: | 9.3 in | | Width: | 6.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.8 in | | Weight: | 28.5 oz |
Industry Reviews
“…worth reading” (<i>Chartest</i>, No.2/3, March – April 2005)
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“…builds up a compulsion to study the often wretched history steeped in greed, cruelty and corruption, that has dominated this part of the world for thousands of years.” (<i>City to Cities</i>, No.32, April – May 2005)
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Black's work should not be taken to the bank. While purporting to be a 7000-year history of Iraq with related economic implications, it ends up being a work of invective and innuendo, sloppy history, and hyperventilating prose regarding the West's relationship to Iraqi oil over the past 100 years. For example, Black has Britain's King Edward VII signing an oil treaty in 1914, four years after his death. Or he mistakenly devalues the military significance of Lawrence of Arabia in Allenby's campaign to practically nothing when, indeed, Lawrence was first into Damascus. However, Black's pejorative and high-energy language and lack of thoughtful interpretation will make this study highly entertaining reading for less thoughtful readers. Black is an investigative reporter with three similar works (e.g., War Against the Weak) and a novel to his credit. On the history of the Middle East, however, the discerning reader will be better off with the studies of Bernard Lewis or Albert Hourani. Recommended only for public and academic libraries collecting extensively in this area. —John F. Riddick, Central Michigan Univ. Lib., Mt. Pleasant (<i>Library Journal,</i> November 1, 2004)
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“…Black succeeds admirably in covering 7,000 years of history…” (<i>Lloyds List International</i>, 26 November 2004)
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Many Americans don't understand what they're currently up against. Al Qaeda has often been depicted as the superpower of terrorist and jihadist networks, commanding the allegiance of jihadist groups throughout the world and influencing global terrorist operations through a steady flow of money and recruits. In fact, al Qaeda has become a relatively small operational component of a violent, global movement bent on waging holy war.<br>
This jihadist movement, at the risk of oversimplification, can best be described as four concentric circles. The inner circle consists of the core of the al Qaeda organization, which now largely serves a symbolic, spiritual and ideological role in the greater jihadist movement. The second circle consists of active members and devotees of numerous jihadist groups that are often called "al Qaeda-related." The denizens of the second circle tend to be even more radical and dangerous than their inner-circle colleagues. The third circle consists of those who believe in the jihadist cause or identify with parts of its ideology; they may provide moral support, and some might offer a jihadist group logistical or financial help. The outer circle is the wider Islamic world. While the core of the jihadist movement consists of devoted terrorists, they depend on the less ideologically hardened "outer" circles of sympathizers, which the inner core targets for recruitment and fundraising efforts.<br>
The jihadist threat is uniquely dangerous because it has become simultaneously more decentralized and more radical since Sept. 11. Never before have we faced a threat whose leaders enjoy so much financial and operational independence. Nor have we ever faced a threat whose "membership" can fluctuate daily and whose recruitment rate increases as the United States stages large-scale military and intelligence operations to eliminate them.<br>
Americans also often don't quite grasp how dangerous the Iraq misadventure is. One key to the overall U.S. response to the jihadist threat is understanding how U.S. actions affecting one of these four concentric circles affects the others. Supporting a democratically illegitimate government in Iraq or conducting counterinsurgency operations there that kill significant numbers of civilians may eliminate many al Qaeda members -- but also generate sympathy ...
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