Middle World

Johnny didn't intentionally mean to get involved with, Maisie, the old lady next door. Rumours around the playground claimed she was a witch and children threw stones at her windows. But Johnny wasn't like other kids, he found her kind and caring, if not just a little weird. She claimed he had a gift and made him feel special. That was until the 'incident'. Waking up in hospital without any memory of what happened to him, Johnny started to see things. Incredible things. But upon returning home he was horrified to discover even his own parents had turned against this sweet old lady. Had the ...

The crown of England is the oldest surviving political institution in Europe. Throughout this audiobook Dr David Starkey emphasises the Crown's endless capacity to adapt to circumstances and reshape national policy, whilst he unmasks the personalities and achievements, the defeats and victories, which lie behind the kings and queens of British history. Each of these monarchs has contributed to the religion, geography, laws, language, and government which we live with today.

The journey that Peled traces in this groundbreaking memoir echoed the trajectory taken 40 years earlier by his father, renowned Israeli general Matti Peled. In The General's Son, Miko Peled tells us about growing up in Jerusalem in the heart of the group that ruled the then-young country, Israel. He takes us with him through his service in the country's military and his subsequent global travels...and then, after his niece's killing, back into the heart of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians.

While numerous books address Israel-Palestine conflict, Gaza in Crisis brings together two renowned thinkers—American activist Noam Chomsky and Israeli historian Ilan Pappé—to examine why this conflict has lasted so long, who can stop it, and how. Israel's Operation Cast Lead, a 2008 military assault on the Gaza Strip, thrust the region to the center of the discussion. With expert knowledge and deep insight, Chomsky and Pappé survey the fallout from Israel's conduct in Gaza and place it in historical context.

On the night before he was to turn forty, Rich Roll experienced a chilling glimpse of his future. Nearly fifty pounds overweight and unable to climb the stairs without stopping, he could see where his current sedentary life was taking him—and he woke up. Plunging into a new routine that prioritized a plant-based lifestyle and daily training, Rich morphed—in a matter of mere months—from out of shape, mid-life couch potato to endurance machine.

Life is quiet and ordinary in Amal's Pakistani village, but she has no complaints, and besides, she's busy pursuing her dream of becoming a teacher one day. Her dreams are temporarily dashed when - as the eldest daughter - she must stay home from school to take care of her siblings. Amal is upset, but she doesn't lose hope and finds ways to continue learning. Then the unimaginable happens - after an accidental run-in with the son of her village's corrupt landlord, Amal must work as his family's servant to pay off her own family's debt.

The Shadow Empire: How Authoritarians Built a Parallel World Order While America was fighting the war on terror, China and Russia were building something far more dangerous: an alternative to the entire Western system. The "rules-based international order" is crumbling. Not from external attack, but from internal rot and external alternatives. While Western leaders still speak as if American dominance is eternal, authoritarian powers have quietly constructed a shadow empire—complete with parallel financial systems, trade networks, and political alliances that make Western sanctions ...

June 5, 1967: The fearsome, Soviet-equipped Egyptian Army and its 1000 tanks are massed on Israel's southern border. Meanwhile, the Syrian Army is shelling the much smaller nation from the north. And to the east, Jordan and Iraq are moving brigades and fighter squadrons into position to attack. Egypt's President Nasser has declared that the Arab world's goal is no less than "the destruction of Israel."

Since the Second World War, Arab armed forces have consistently punched below their weight. They have lost many wars that by all rights they should have won, and in their best performances only ever achieved quite modest accomplishments. Over time, soldiers, scholars, and military experts have offered various explanations for this pattern.

In War Against the Jews: How to End Hamas Barbarism, Alan Dershowitz—#1 New York Times bestselling author and one of America’s most respected legal scholars—explains why the horrific attack of Oct 7 and Israel’s just response changes everything.

Africa's middle class has suffered a rapid decline since the days of the Arab Spring, from 313 million down to only 18 according to some estimates. This for Africa is comparable to the Great Depression of the 1920's... The collapse of the African middle class, besides its obvious economic implications may come as a bonus for African leaders who want to extend their rule indefinitely. The opposition in these countries is in disarray, and some of their numbers are easy prey to those with the money bags who are working to disintegrate any credible opposition to the regimes. Both the middle ...

Israel and Palestine: The Complete History seeks to explain the overall story of Israeli and Palestinian tensions and divisions in the region. Indeed, without properly understanding the full history of the area, it is impossible to understand the current situation. In this book, author Ian Carroll takes the listener back to the very beginning of the conflict some 4,000 years ago, then moves through the major events of the Middle Ages and 20th century, and brings us right up to the present day, documenting the significant events that have happened along the way.

When thinking about America's role in the world, Dwight Eisenhower, George H. W. Bush, and Barack Obama may not seem to have a lot in common. But they do. While divided by background, generation, and political party, they exemplify a distinct and underappreciated tradition of American leadership: The Middle Way. As the scholar and former senior foreign policy official Derek Chollet shows in this deeply researched book, these three presidents took a centrist - and effective - approach to foreign policy.

Gass’ new novel moves from World War II Europe to a small town in postwar Ohio. In a series of variations, Gass gives us a mosaic of a life - futile, comic, anarchic - arranged in an array of vocabularies, altered rhythms, forms and tones, and broken pieces with music as both theme and structure, set in the key of middle C. It begins in Graz, Austria, 1938. Joseph Skizzen's father, pretending to be Jewish, leaves his country for England with his wife and two children to avoid any connection with the Nazis, who he foresees will soon take over his homeland....

One of the most thought-provoking books ever written about the Middle East, From Beirut to Jerusalem remains vital to our understanding of this complex and volatile region of the world. Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L. Friedman drew upon his 10 years of experience reporting from Lebanon and Israel to write this now-classic work of journalism.

The twentieth century for Palestine and the Palestinians has been a century of denial: denial of statehood, denial of nationhood and denial of history. The Hundred Years War on Palestine is Rashid Khalidi's powerful response. Drawing on his family archives, he reclaims the fundamental right of any people: to narrate their history on their own terms. Beginning in the final days of the Ottoman Empire, Khalidi reveals nascent Palestinian nationalism and the broad recognition by the early Zionists of the colonial nature of their project.

An Oxford-educated scholar of the Middle East and a former foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, Hugh Pope lived and worked in two dozen countries throughout the region. Following in the footsteps of Sir Richard Burton and Lawrence of Arabia, Hugh Pope's explorations of the people, politics, religion, and culture of Islamic nations shows there is no such thing as a monolithic "Muslim World".

An astonishing retelling of 20th-century history from the Ottoman perspective, delivering profound new insights into World War I and the contemporary Middle East. Between 1911 and 1922, a series of wars would engulf the Ottoman Empire and its successor states, in which the central conflict, of course, was World War I - a story we think we know well. As Sean McMeekin shows us in this revelatory new history of what he calls the "wars of the Ottoman succession", we know far less than we think.

Until Scandinavia converted to Christianity and came under the rule of powerful kings, the Vikings were a dominant force in the medieval world. Outfitted with wind-powered sailing ships, they left their mark, spreading terror across Europe, sacking cities, deposing kings, and ransacking economies. But as much as we know about this culture, there is a large missing piece: its women. In this revisionist portrait, science journalist Heather Pringle turns those assumptions on their head, using the latest archaeological research and historical findings to reveal this group as they actually were.

From the Koran to Shakespeare, this city with three names - Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul - resonates as an idea and a place, real and imagined. Standing as the gateway between East and West, North and South, it has been the capital city of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. For much of its history it was the very center of the world, known simply as "The City", but, as Bettany Hughes reveals, Istanbul is not just a city but a global story.