Book recommendations needed for understanding the Middle East

[rjx]

I'm sure I could search Amazon and find a variety of books on this topic. But I'd like to know which books the DU community recommends.

We see the news: the terror attacks, the turmoil, uprising, and hatred towards the west. What I'm looking for is how did this start, and how has it evolved over the years.

An extremely complex topic. I'm sure I'll need to read many books. So, if you don't mind, can you please recommend books that you feel should be mandatory reading?

Thanks!

[JHB]

1. The Age of Sacred Terror (2002)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sacred-Terror-Daniel-Benjamin/dp/0375508597

By two former NSA people, started more than a year before 911 and released a year after it, the book gives a good overview of the development of radical sects and groups like al Queda. It's date also keeps it free of most of the post-911 spin the Bushies tried to paint on everything.

It has long-term historic background, and also more up to date information. I was particularly struck by how much information the Clinton admin was able to get about Al Queda through what the Bushies sneered at as "law enforcement" techniques.

[rexcat]

2. One of the best books I have read is...

"All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror" by Stephen Kinzer. It is specific about Iran but gives a good primer on the Ottaman Empire and post Ottaman Empire (1921 to WWII) and how the British and US screwed up the Middle East. The book conntects the dots from 1953 to 1979 to 9/11/2001.

http://www.amazon.com/All-Shahs-Men-American-Middle/dp/047018549X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350692700&sr=8-1&keywords=all+the+shaws+men

[FLSurfer]

3. I'll second that recommendation

Excellent information.
Loved it.

[rjx]

4. Thank You!!

My local Library has both these titles on the shelf. Tomorrow (Saturday) i'm going to check them out!

If anyone else has a recommendation I'd be grateful.

Thanks!

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. You want to know how this started and has evolved? You need to go back quite a ways

all the way back to WWI, the defeat of Turkey, and the victorious allies carving up the corpse of the Ottoman Empire between them; see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement

France and Britain carved up the Ottoman empire into newly delineated areas whose borders ensured future conflicts (see: Turkey, Iraq, and Kurdistan, for instance). And then British support for the Zionist project in Palestine and the eventual creation of the state of Israel (and Israel's support by the West), have only complicated matters; for a reasonably good overview of the Israel/Palestine issue and some of the complicated history behind it I'd recommend "Holy Land, Unholy War" by Anton LaGuardia: http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Land-Unholy-Anton-Guardia/dp/0141028017/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1350711669&sr=1-1&keywords=holy+land%2C+unholy+war

And for a good general history of the Middle East: http://www.amazon.com/History-of-the-Middle-East/dp/0718192311/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top