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This authoritative and comprehensive history of Iran, written by Homa Katouzian, an acclaimed expert, covers the entire history of the area from the foundation of the ancient Persian empire to today’s Iranian state.

Correspondent Ahmed Rashid brings the shadowy world of the Taliban—the world’s most extreme and radical Islamic organization—into sharp focus in this enormously insightful book. New to this updated edition of the #1 New York Times Bestseller with more than 1.5 million copies sold worldwide: how the Taliban has regained its strength; how and why the Taliban has spread acros...

This accessible and informative history brings the classical Islamic world alive, illuminating its importance to the cultural history of Europe and America as the inheritor and interpreter of Graeco-Roman traditions.

This book is the first comprehensive investigation to determine why twelve cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published in a Danish newspaper in 2005 enraged many in the Muslim world.

Based on forty years of field work by one of the world’s leading scholars on Bedouin culture, this book is the first to show how Bedouin society provides for its own law and order in the traditional absence of any centralized authority or law enforcement agency.

This brave and groundbreaking book tells the story of Palestinian partition from both the Arab and Jewish perspectives.

In this wide-ranging and masterful work, Ahmad Dallal examines the significance of scientific knowledge and situates the culture of science in relation to other cultural forces in Muslim societies.

This groundbreaking history connects Nazi Germany’s Arabic language propaganda during World War II to anti-Semitism in the Middle East in the decades since.

In this gripping book, a U.S. Army brigade commander offers an unprecedented on-the-ground account of the crucial first year of the war in Iraq. Colonel Peter Mansoor assesses the successes and failures of military operations against the insurgency and underscores the critical lessons to be learned from them.

Ali A. Allawi—a respected Iraqi statesman and thinker who has served the postwar government in several posts—offers a bold analysis of today’s crisis in the Islamic world. He offers proposals that will surprise some and anger others, but they cannot be ignored by anyone concerned about the future of Islamic civilization.

Pakistan—with its political instability, pressing economic and social problems, access to nuclear weapons, and proximity to Afghanistan—stands at the very center of global attention. Can General Musharraf, Pakistan’s military ruler, control the forces that helped create the Taliban in Afghanistan? In this fascinating book, correspondent Bennett Jones looks at Pakistan’s tur...

With unprecedented access to royal family archives, Nigel Ashton draws the first accurate portrait of Jordan’s King Hussein, a towering figure who led his nation for five turbulent decades. This biography brings Hussein to life and sheds new light on the Iran-Contra affair, the Middle East peace process, and the history of the region.

Tackling one of the world’s most perplexing and divisive issues, renowned historian Benny Morris considers the legacy of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, previous proposed solutions to the conflict between Palestinians and Israel, and the viability of various options for the future. His conclusions inspire hope for a just solution in a region where it is most sorely ...

This engaging book is the first to gather together the hundreds of colorful legends told in cultures across the globe about Alexander the Great, conqueror of the ancient world. Richard Stoneman shows how the mythical exploits of Alexander have resonated for Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and in eastern and western cultures, for more than 2000 years.

This beautifully written biography of the internationally renowned Palestinian poet Taha offers a compelling portrait of the man as well as a nuanced, deeply human view of the tragedy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Taha’s story, like his poetry, is at once profoundly local and utterly universal.

This lavishly illustrated book explores medieval Castilian culture and the Arabic, Hebrew, and Christian strands that are inextricably woven into its fabric. The authors paint a vivid portrait of the culture through its arts, architecture, poetry and prose, all enriched by dynamic interaction with disparate cultures and peoples.

With growing economic might, new political influence, and changing social dynamics, India has emerged as a major world power. This up-to-date book assesses the forces that have contributed to and those that have impeded the nation’s growth since independence, offering a new perspective on India today and on its prospects for the future.

This accessible and vividly written book presents a new interpretation of India’s history, focusing particular attention on the impact of British imperialism on Independent India. Maria Misra begins with the rebellion against the British in 1857 and tracks the country’s advance to the present day. India’s extremes persist, the author arg...

Many millions of Americans believe that God requires unconditional support for Israel and that the coming battle of Armageddon is His will. This timely book explores Christian Zionism, its 400-year history, and the impact of the movement on American foreign policy in the Middle East and on deteriorating relationships with European allies.

This is a comprehensive account of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, told for the first time by an Iraqi insider. Ali Allawi, former Iraqi Minister of Defense and Finance, writes from the perspective of both principal and observer, shedding new light on the story behind the invasion, the shambolic aftermath and attempts at stabilization, and why events have failed to unfold as planned.

In today’s world of conflict and threatened nuclear violence, few books, if any, could be more important than this one. Middle East expert Trita Parsi untangles the complex and often duplicitous relations among Israel, Iran, and the United States from 1948 to the present and spells out how American policies can avert catastrophe and lead the region toward peace...

What are the real reasons for 9/11? What kind of thinking enables terrorists to justify unprovoked destruction and the murder of innocent people? This penetrating book is the first to explain the inner logic of al-Qaida and like-minded extremist groups. Mary Habeck examines the new movement known as jihadism and suggests how it can be defeated.

In this meticulously researched book, Gordon Hahn analyzes why contemporary Russia is a dangerous seedbed for radicalized Islam and then proposes what we should be doing about it. Hahn draws an alarming picture of an increasingly sophisticated and effective Chechen jihadist network with grand ambitions and dangerous global connections.

One of Jordan’s top diplomats provides an insider’s perspective on the promise and perils of taking the “middle road” toward peace in the Middle East. Marwan Muasher recounts the details of diplomatic efforts over the past two decades and discusses what must be done to encourage the development of moderate, pragmatic Arab voices.

Counter-terrorist expert Matthew Levitt  provides the first complete, fully-documented portrait of Hamas, the militant Islamist organization that Palestinian voters brought to power in the stunning election of January 2006. Levitt draws aside the veil of legitimacy behind which Hamas hides and reveals the alarming extent of the organization’s commitment to terror.

 

The fate of modern Syria is tied closely to Bashar al-Asad, its young ophthalmologist-turned-president, whose leadership will profoundly affect the nature of the Middle East of the future. David Lesch, the only Westerner with access to Bashar and his circle, tells the inside story of this enigmatic leader and offers important insights into his turbulent nation.

In this frightening reassessment of the 1991 Gulf War, a strategic analyst reveals that the war was not the high-tech victory that many Americans perceive, but a nearly catastrophic event. Focusing on the role played by weapons of mass destruction—in particular biological and chemical weapons—Avigdor Haselkorn argues that these have redefined the meaning of deterrence and have set in m...

With wisdom and eloquence, one of the world's preeminent senior statesmen offers his unique perspective on the practice of diplomacy over the last fifty years and on the diplomatic challenges of the post-Cold War era. Abba Eban, Israel's much admired former foreign minister and ambassador to the United Nations, interweaves history with personal reminiscences to show how the wisdom of the past can ...

This completely revised edition of Linda Fasulo’s popular guide to the United Nations surveys the world body’s programs and activities, and covers key issues including human rights, climate change, counterterrorism, nuclear proliferation, peacekeeping, and UN reform.  It also offers guidelines for setting up a Model UN.

A thought-provoking exploration of the AmericanIranian relationship, from the 1940s through the Iran-Contra affair and its aftermath. Political analyst James Bill, who has not only lived in Iran but also closely observed U.S. policy-making toward that country, draws on interviews with many of the key American and Iranian figures, embassy files, Persian sources, archival records, and other sources...

This fascinating book examines the situation of Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel, analyzing how the Palestinian collective identity has been shaped by social and political forces and how it poses major challenges to Israel's policies, structure, and identity.

This monumental book examines Afghan society in conflict, from the 1978 communist coup to the fall of Najibullah, the last Soviet-installed president, in 1992. This edition, newly revised by the author, reflects developments since then and includes material on the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. It is a book that now seems remarkably prescient.

This important book discusses how changing patterns of superpower strategic conflict and cooperation have affected international negotiations over Afghanistan from the period of the civil war to the present. Along with Rubin's earlier book, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, it provides an integrated view of the interaction among vari...

This comprehensively researched book examines how civic ties between Hindus and Muslims in different Indian cities serve to contain, or even prevent, ethnic violence. The book is of interest not only to South Asian scholars and policymakers but also to those studying multiethnic societies in other areas of the world.

Leila Ahmed adds a new perspective to the current debate about women and Islam by tracing what Islamic texts throughout history have had to say about women and gender. Using the analytical tools of contemporary gender studies, Ahmed surveys Islamic discourse on women and places debates in their social and historical context, focusing on Arabia during the period in which Islam was founded...

One of America’s most distinguished defenders of civil liberties here presents measures that will prevent terrorism and still uphold our legal, moral, and humanitarian values. Rejecting approaches toward terrorists that are either too compassionate or too harsh, Alan M. Dershowitz offers proposals to combat terrorism that strike a balance between security and liberty.

Ahmed Rashid, author of the bestselling Taliban, now turns his investigative skills to the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia adjacent to Afghanistan. He shows that Islamic fundamentalism has given rise to guerrilla movements that threaten the stability of this vital strategic region. Rashid explains the roots of these movements, describes their goals, and suggests ways in which t...

In this substantially revised and expanded version of Nikki Keddie’s classic work Roots of Revolution, the author brings the story of modern Iran to the present day. She explores the political, cultural, and social changes of the past quarter century, in particular the effects of the Iran-Iraq war, the Persian Gulf War, and Iran’s strategic relationship with the U.S. after 9/11....

Outstanding scholars offer a wide range of perspectives on women's roles throughout Middle Eastern history, from the earliest Islamic period to the present. Using a rich array of sources, they show that gender boundaries in the Middle East have been neither fixed nor immutable: changes in family patterns, religious rituals, socio-economic necessity, myth and ideology—and not least, women's a...

This groundbreaking history shatters many assumptions about the Six-Day War of 1967. New research in Soviet archives and testimonies from participants in the Israeli/Egyptian conflict reveal the extent of the Kremlin’s involvement, plans for the use of nuclear weapons in the Mid-East, and willingness to precipitate a global crisis.

In this gripping account of Algeria’s history, the authors reveal how the nation that was a model of progress in the 1970s descended into alienation and violence in the next decades. The book explores the rise of political Islam, Algeria’s complicated relationship with Western powers, and why the War on Terror has not only failed to deter Algerian terrori...

This book is the first to explore fully the role that Zionism played in the political thought of Winston Churchill. Tracing the development of Churchill’s positions toward Zionism and the Jewish people throughout his long career, Michael Makovsky offers a fresh and balanced insight into one of the twentieth century’s greatest figures.

One of the first events of decolonization in the twentieth century, the Great Partition of 1947 was also one of the most bloody. In this sweeping reappraisal of India’s liberation from British rule and the emergence of Pakistan, Yasmin Khan uncovers the recklessness of the Partition plan, its catastrophic human...

The Second Crusade (1145-1149) was an extraordinarily bold, but largely unsuccessful, attempt to defeat “unbelievers” in the Holy Land, Iberia, and northeastern Europe. This definitive book casts new light on the origins, planning, and execution of the Second Crusade, uncovering its profound impact on both Europe and the Middle East.

Efraim Karsh, a widely respected expert in Middle Eastern affairs, challenges the way we understand Middle Eastern history and politics in this provocative book. September 11 and other Islamic acts of aggression have little to do with U.S. behavior or policy, Karsh argues. Rather, such attacks express Islam's ancient, powerful, and continuing imperial tradition.

This groundbreaking book examines slavery in the Islamic Middle East from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century and along the way offers fresh perspectives on bondage throughout the world. By listening to the unheard voices of enslaved peoples, Ehud Toledano arrives at new ways of thinking about both the enslaver and the enslaved.

This groundbreaking account of the first Israeli-Arab war is history at its best: meticulously accurate, objective, and told with drama and flair. Benny Morris demolishes misconceptions and brings to light the political and military facts of the war that led to the birth of the state of Israel and the shattering of Palestinian Arab society.

This book demonstrates the breadth and beauty of Islamic calligraphy across centuries and continents, as seen in rare early folios of the Qur’an.

What was it like to participate in the Crusades? This vividly written book recreates for the first time the experience of medieval European crusaders, from the elation of taking up the cross, through years of staggering privation, to the difficult adjustment upon returning home.

Two highly respected religious scholars, one a Christian and the other a Jew, explore the origins of the belief in resurrection. They clarify what is surprising to many—that the Jews believed in resurrection long before the emergence of Christianity—and they discuss deep and meaningful connections between their two faiths.

The near-sacrifice and miraculous restoration of a beloved son is a central but largely overlooked theme in both Judaism and Christianity, celebrated in biblical texts on Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Joseph, and Jesus. In this highly original book, Jon D. Levenson explores how this notion of child sacrifice constitutes an overlooked bond between the two religions. 

This rich anthology presents and explains 1,350 Bedouin proverbs, almost none of which have been heard outside the Bedouin world. Clinton Bailey has collected the proverbs during more than thirty years of fieldwork, and he offers an intimate view of the life and survival techniques of the hardy Bedouin whose centuries-old oral culture is rapidly disappearing.

In this comprehensive history of the synagogue from the Hellenistic period through late antiquity, Lee Levine traces the development of a dynamic and revolutionary institution. Examining synagogues in Israel and the Diaspora, he describes their physical features, role in the community, leadership, liturgy, and art as well as their success in integrating social and religious behavior from surroundi...

This luminous portrait of twentieth-century Alexandria recreates life in the city, its cosmopolitan inhabitants, and such writers as E.M. Forster and Lawrence Durrell who spent time there. It explores the city’s experience of the two world wars and evokes the Greek, Italian, and Jewish communities that gave it its unique flavor.

Jonathan Riley-Smith here provides a comprehensive history of the Crusades: an account of the theology of violence behind the Crusades, the major Crusades, the experience of crusading, and the crusaders themselves. With a wealth of fascinating detail, Riley-Smith brings to life these stirring expeditions and the politics and personalities behind them. His book will be the standard and authoritativ...

The latest edition of this highly praised anthology of ancient Egyptian literature offers fresh translations of all the texts as well as some twenty-five new entries, including writings from the late literature of the Demotic period at the end of classical Egyptian history. The book also includes an extensive bibliography.

In this sweeping overview of life in the ancient Near East, Snell surveys the history of the region from the invention of writing five thousand years ago to Alexander the Great’s conquest in 332 B.C. The book provides a detailed picture of the demography, social groups, family, women, labor, land and animal management, crafts, trade, money, and government of the countries of ancient Western ...

This engrossing book explores the first millennium of Islamic culture, shattering stereotypes and enlightening readers about the events and achievements that have shaped contemporary Islamic civilization. A wonderful introduction to the rich history of the Muslim people, the volume proceeds from Muhammad’s seventh-century revelations to the great Ottoman, Satavid, and Mughal empires and conc...

This delightful book tells the story of ancient libraries from their very beginnings, when “books” were clay tablets and writing was a new phenomenon. Renowned classicist Lionel Casson takes us on a lively tour from the royal libraries of the ancient Near East, through the private and public libraries of Greece and Rome, down to the first Christian monastic libraries. Casson explains w...

In this highly interesting book, renowned biblical expert Bernhard Lang offers the first full portrait of the ancient Hebrew God. Drawing on all available evidence, including ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian texts and art, Lang sets forth a comprehensive view of the God of Israel that will fascinate and surprise both general reader and religious historian alike.

This important book offers the first comprehensive history of religious dualism, the doctrine that cosmos and man are constant battlegrounds for the forces of good and evil and their supernatural protagonists. Yuri Stoyanov traces crucial stages in the evolution of dualism from its early expression in late Egyptian religion and the revelations of Zoroaster to the revival of the “Great Heresy...

In recent years radical fundamentalists have had a formidable intellectual and social impact on Sunni Islam countries such as Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. This highly acclaimed book by an eminent Arabist focuses on the development of Sunni Muslim fundamentalism, discussing how it rejected western values, broke with pan-Arabism, and took on an activist political position. This enlarged edition contai...

A recreation of the spiritual life of ancient Mesopotamia demonstrating that the roots of Western civilization lie in the ancient Near East.

Why did an Islamic revolution occur only in Iran? Why have most Muslim fundamentalists elsewhere been incapable of mobilizing mass support? In this compellingly argued new book, Henry Munson, Jr., addresses these questions through historical and anthropological analysis of the role of Islam in Middle Eastern society and politics.

The eminent Assyriologist Thorkild Jacobsen, author of Treasures of Darkness, here presents translations of ancient Sumerian poems written near the end of the third millennium b.c.e., including a number of compositions that have never before been published in translation. The themes developed in the poems—quite possibly the earliest poems extant—are those that have fascinated hu...

In this fascinating work, H. W. F. Saggs presents a wide-ranging survey of the greatest achievements of the ancient civilizations of the Near and Middle East—from the Phoenician alphabet to mathematics, astronomy, medicine, religion, and international law—and shows how their influence is still felt today.

In this lavishly illustrated book some of Israel's foremost archaeologists present a thorough, up-to-date, and readily accessible survey of early life in the land of the Bible, from the Neolithic era (eighth millennium B.C.E.) to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. It will be a delightful and informative resource for anyone who has ever wanted to k...

When Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire in 30 B.C., its vast and mysterious frontier had an important impact on the commerce, politics, and culture of the empire. Robert B. Jackson takes us on a journey to this frontier region, and his book—part history and part gazetteer—describes the ancient sites while conveying vividly what life was like at the time.

This outstanding collection makes available to scholars for the first time hand copies of 313 clay tablets preserved in the Yale Babylonian Collection. The tablets—written in the Akkadian language using a cuneiform script—illuminate the social and economic history of the reign of Nabonidus, king of Babylon from 556 B.C. to the Persian conquest in 539 B.C.

From early canals dug by Egyptian pharaohs to the building of the Aswan High Dam in 1971, many civilizations have struggled to tame the Nile River and control its resources. This book investigates the past, present, and future of the world’s longest river and delineates the various pressures exerted by the diverse peoples who have thrived along its banks.

This book examines the complex legal, political, environmental, and economic issues that face all international river basins by focusing on the Nile Basin and its ten bordering countries. Applying collective action and international relations theory, John Waterbury proposes a series of steps to foster cooperation and environmentally sound policy. 

This handsome volume is the first comprehensive study of the art and architecture of the Fatimids––the Ismaili Shi'i dynasty that ruled in North Africa and Egypt from 909 to 1171.

This book demonstrates the breadth and beauty of Islamic calligraphy across centuries and continents, as seen in rare early folios of the Qur’an.

This richly illustrated and fascinating book presents exceptional works of the 17th through 19th centuries, drawn primarily from an unrivaled private collection. It features pens, pen boxes, chests, tables, paper scissors, knives, burnishers, and book bindings of superb manufacture and design, accompanied by examples of calligraphy that were executed as practice exer...

This book traces the complex and changing artistic tradition––including the emergence and development of Buddhist art––in this ancient region of Pakistan.

Presenting over 100 unparalleled ceramic works largely produced in Iran and Iraq, this handsome book documents the extraordinary achievements in Islamic pottery from the 9th to 14th century.

This volume––which documents 26 excavated stone-built tombs of the ancient Egyptian Twelfth Dynasty––features remains of reliefs and inscriptions that decorated the walls and demonstrates the astonishing variety of Middle Kingdom funeral architecture. 

In this collection of essays, 20 international scholars analyze finds from recent archaeological excavations in areas ranging from the Caucasus to China and offer new insights into the material culture of the ancient Eurasian steppe nomads.

This groundbreaking book explores the emergence of Persian albums in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and examines the ways the albums evolved into portable collections created to preserve and display art. Beautifully illustrated with many rare and previously unpublished images, the book demonstrates how the practice of album-making opens a fresh vista on the Persian art tradition.

Long considered lost beyond recall, the architecture of ancient Alexandria is rediscovered in this masterful feat of archaeological detective work. Lavishly illustrated, the book uncovers the true extent of the city's architectural legacy.

This beautifully illustrated book presents more than seventy exquisite drawings—some of which are counted among the finest Indian, Persian, or Turkish drawings ever made—and explores the connections between the arts and artists of the three cultures.

Virtually all the masterpieces of Islamic art—the Alhambra, the Taj Mahal, and the Tahmasp Shahnama—were produced during the period from the Mongol conquests in the early thirteenth century to the advent of European colonial rule in the nineteenth. This lavishly illustrated book surveys the architecture and arts of the traditional Islamic lands during this era.

This richly illustrated book provides an unsurpassed overview of Islamic art and architecture during a time that witnessed the formation of a new artistic culture and its first, medieval, flowering in the vast area from the Atlantic to India. Inspired by Ettinghausen and Grabar’s original text, this book has been completely rewritten and updated, and many new illustrations have been added.

This book explores Byzantium’s magnificent artistic legacy, focusing on the critical political, economic, religious, and cultural issues that helped shape the last centuries of the empire.

A sequel to the landmark catalogue The Glory of Byzantium, this spectacular book—the first to focus exclusively on the last golden age of the Byzantine empire—presents magnificent secular and religious works in all media.

This CD-ROM presents 424 terracottas from the Cesnola Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and includes catalogue entries, commentaries, a glossary, chronology, and maps. Inexpensive, portable, and user-friendly, it provides an invaluable tool for students and archaeologists.

Persian art—with its detailed ornamentation, use of color, floral decoration, balanced patterns, landscape imagery, and intricate craftsmanship--includes some of the most beautiful works of art ever created. For the first time within a single volume, these various aspects of the arts of Persia are discussed in an interrelated and complementary manner. In this handsome and highly readable boo...

This unusual and beautifully illustrated volume presents more than 150 art objects from the Year One, discusses the widely diverse cultures that produced them, and illuminates the connections among them. The range of the works is extraordinary—from Roman portraits and Celtic ornaments to Egyptian funerary masks, Parthian stone carvings, Indian sculpture, Chinese terracotta sculptures, Japane...

This book is the first comprehensive study of the exquisite accomplishments of Islamic glassmakers from the seventh to the nineteenth century. The volume presents 155 glass objects from collections throughout the world--perfume flasks to pitchers, mosque lanterns to boxes, inkwells to vases--and discusses their historical background, archaeological excavation, production technique, decoration, and...

Sweeping across Asia in the thirteenth century, nomadic Mongols led by Genghis Khan created the largest empire the world has ever known. During the century they ruled Iran as the Ilkhanid dynasty (1256-1353), a brilliant cultural flowering took place encompassing many branches of the arts. This splendid volume focuses on that culture, presenting in full color some two hundred extraordinary works&#...

This handsome book highlights an important period in art history: a time marked by the appearance of the city states of the Sumerians, the citadel of Troy, the royal tombs at Ur, and the monumental cities at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. Presenting more than 500 works of art, many never reproduced before, the volume examines the cultural achievements of these first urban societies.

Renoir, the only Impressionist artist to paint Orientalist themes, made two journeys to the French North African colony of Algeria in 1881 and 1882 and created more than two dozen stunning works there. This gorgeous book assembles the Algerian paintings for the first time and places them in the context of the topography of the city and the ethnography of its people.

This beautiful book reproduces for the first time the recently cleaned thirteenth-century wall paintings of the Monastery of St. Antony at the Red Sea. Accompanying essays analyze the unique amalgam of Coptic, Byzantine, and Arab styles and motifs in this unique cycle of medieval Egyptian images, as well as findings brought to light by the restoration.

When the throne room of the ancient Assyrian "Palace without Rival" was rediscovered in 1847, its sculptures remained amazingly intact. But air pollution, animal damage, vandalism, neglect, and now looting for the international art market have brought ruin to the palace. Its splendor now survives only in this book, which presents for the first time the only extensive photographic records of Sennac...

This book tells the vivid story of Sir Austen Henry Layard's nineteenth-century rediscovery of ancient Assyria and its fabled capital, Nineveh, and of the subsequent collection, dispersal, and frantic twentieth-century reacquisition of Layard's huge collection of ancient Assyrian art. With previously unpublished photographs, illustrations from rare nineteenth-century sources, and first-hand accoun...

This classic work on the nature of early Islamic art has now been enlarged and brought up to date in order to take into consideration material that has recently come to light.

This gorgeously illustrated book focuses on the art of the supremely talented Bellini family—Jacopo and his sons Gentile and Giovanni—who transformed Venetian Renaissance painting. Positioned at the cultural crossroads of Christendom, Byzantium, and the Islamic world, the Bellinis created in their works a new synthesis of cultural ideas and aesthetics.

Using art historical detective work, archival documents, and scientific data, this volume identifies the provenance of an important group of ceramics and places them in a clear historical context for the first time.

This magnificent book surveys painting as well as sculpture, ceramics, and metalwork of the Iranian world from prehistoric times to the early twentieth century. Eleanor Sims traces for the first time the evolution of such themes as princes, heroes, lovers, animals, landscape, Persian literature, and religion in these rich and creative arts. She uncovers remarkable and unexpected thematic consisten...

This book is the first volume of a projected series on the excavations by The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Egyptian Expedition at the pyramid complex of Senwosret III at Dahshur. Illustrated with photographs, line drawings, and computer reconstructions, the book describes and analyzes the architecture, construction, and building history of this complex, including pyramids, temples, chapels, ...

The nearly twenty-year reign of Egypt’s female pharaoh Hatshepsut was a period of immense artistic creativity. This handsome book is the first to explore in detail Hatshepsut’s rise to power in the fifteenth century B.C., the nature of her kingship, the innovative art and architecture of her time, and the mysterious obliteration of her name from historical accounts.

 

Diseases and injuries were major concerns for ancient Egyptians. This book, featuring some sixty-four objects from the Metropolitan Museum, discusses how both practical and magical medicine informed Egyptian art and for the first time reproduces and translates treatments described in the spectacular Edwin Smith Papyrus.

This book explores and documents the 15th-century BC tomb of three foreign wives of Tuthmosis III, discovered and robbed by villagers near Luxor in 1916. Incorporating the findings of field work conducted at the site by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the book discusses the lives of the foreign wives and the objects verified to have come from their tomb.

This book provides the first full account of the poetic and artistic history of the copy of the Haft awrang—the great Persian literary classic—commissioned by Prince Sultan Ibrahim Mirza in 1556. Sumptuously illustrated, it includes many magnificent reproductions of the original folios—masterpieces of Islamic art—which showcase the work of some of the finest calligra...

Through the camera lens, contemporary Israeli and non-Israeli artists view Israel today from a broad range of perspectives. Their photographs and videos, all created since 2000, represent the life and culture of a nation where political realities influence every aspect of creative culture and where individual identities evolve in complex ways.

 

Although Israeli and American Jews share kinship and history drawn from their Eastern European roots, they often seem more like distant cousins than close relatives. This book explores why this is so. Using examples from literature, art, history, and politics, leading Israeli and American scholars examine how the two communities that share a sense of mutual responsibility and fate have created sep...

In this timely book, Bernard Wasserstein traces the history of diplomatic struggles over Jerusalem from the Crusades to the present day. Since its founding, the Holy City has been conquered at least thirty-seven times—by Jews, Muslims, Christians, and an array of foreign nations. Wasserstein illuminates the complicated origins of the current diplomatic impasse, details the negotiations of th...

In this startling new interpretation of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, Bernard Wasserstein focuses on largely neglected forces—demographic, economic, and social—that have shaped the politics of the region but have also made the two societies so interdependent that they may have to forge better relationships in order to survive.

For thirty years Ben Kiernan has been deeply involved in the study of genocide and crimes against humanity. He has played a key role in unearthing confidential documentation of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. His writings have transformed our understanding not only of twentieth-century Cambodia but also of the historical phenomenon of genocide. This new ...

For thirty years Ben Kiernan has been deeply involved in the study of genocide and crimes against humanity. He has played a key role in unearthing confidential documentation of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. His writings have transformed our understanding not only of twentieth-century Cambodia but also of the historical phenomenon of genocide. This new ...

While globalization may seem a modern phenomenon, it is actually a process that began when humans first migrated from Africa, explains Nayan Chanda in this fascinating book. He traces how traders, preachers, warriors, and adventurers have reshaped the world and reconnected us throughout history, and he offers a provocative discussion of what globalization means for t...

Few would argue against the need for change in American foreign policy, but what approach would be best? Amitai Etzioni here proposes a foreign policy that is both pragmatic and morally sound—one in which basic security is the first priority. His ideas ring with the sound of reason, and his book should be required reading for every leader, policy maker and voter in America.

Few would argue against the need for change in American foreign policy, but what approach would be best? Amitai Etzioni here proposes a foreign policy that is both pragmatic and morally sound—one in which basic security is the first priority. His ideas ring with the sound of reason, and his book should be required reading for every leader, policy maker and voter in America.