**The definitive history of the Middle East, now updated in its fifth edition'The best overall survey of the politics, regional rivalries and economics of the contemporary Arab world' Washington Post**Over the centuries the Middle East has confounded the dreams of conquerors and peacemakers alike. This now-classic book follows the historic struggles of the region over the last two hundred years, from Napoleon's assault on Egypt, through the slow decline and fall of...

Over the centuries the Middle East has confounded the dreams of conquerors and peacemakers alike. This now-classic book, fully updated to 2009, follows the historic struggles of the region over the last two hundred years, from Napoleon's assault on Egypt, through the slow decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire, to the painful emergence of modern nations, the Palestinian question and Islamic resurgence.For this third edition, Economist journalist and Middle East correspondent Nicola...

In this autobiography, Sir Peter Mansfield describes his life from war time childhood that initially sparked his interest in physics to his work in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that eventually led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 2003. Peter Mansfield grew up in London, but was evacuated to Devon during the blitz and following the V1 and V2 attacks on London. At the end of hostilities, he worked briefly in the printing industry before deciding to pursue his real interests in science ...

For more than four thousand years, the Middle East has provided a setting for titanic struggles between great civilizations and religions. In the twentieth century it became the focus of rivalry between the European powers as the last major Islamic empire of the Ottoman Turks crumbled and collapsed. The discovery of the world’s greatest oil reserves gave the region global economic importance as well as a unique strategic value.In this masterly work of synthesis, Peter Mansfield dra...

In this definitive history of the modern Arab world, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan draws extensively on Arab sources and texts to place the Arab experience in its crucial historical context for the first time. Tracing five centuries of Arab history, Rogan reveals that there was an age when the Arabs set the rules for the rest of the world. Today, however, the Arab world's sense of subjection to external powers carries vast consequences for both the region and Westerners who attempt ...

The British Empire was the largest in all history: the nearest thing to global domination ever achieved. The world we know today is in large measure the product of Britain’s age of empire. The global spread of capitalism, telecommunications, the English language, and the institutions of representative government—all these can be traced back to the extraordinary expansion of Britain’s economy, population, and culture from the seventeenth century until the mid-twentieth. On a vast and vividl...

Many nations define themselves in terms of territory or people; China defines itself in terms of history. Taking into account the country's unrivaled, voluminous tradition of history writing, John Keay has composed a vital and illuminating overview of the nation's complex and vivid past. Keay's authoritative history examines 5,000 years in China, from the time of the Three Dynasties through Chairman Mao and the current economic transformation of the country. Crisp, judicious, and engaging,...

The fateful quarter century leading up to World War I was a time when the world of privilege still existed in Olympian luxury and the world of protest was “heaving in its pain, its power, and its hate.”The age was the climax of a century of the most accelerated rate of change to that point in history, a cataclysmic shaping of destiny.Barbara Tuchman brings to vivid life the people, places, and events that shaped the years leading up to the Great War: the Ed...

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.The American Civil War started when eleven southern ‘slave’ states declared their independence from the United States of America. Abraham Lincoln’s Republican government were strongly against slavery and fought to abolish it and keep the country united.The American Civil War: History in an Hour gives a concise and authoritative overview of these four years of bloody and devastating warfare to help you understand how the ...

In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize–winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion, and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization.Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted. As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diam...

Andrew Ross Sorkin's websiteAndrew Ross Sorkin's interview on Charlie RoseWatch a VideoAndrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami. From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea, and the corridors of Washington, Too Big to Fail is the definitive story...

**A propulsive, relentless page-turner filled with conspiracies, hope, and resilience, from a bestselling author."Inventive, edgy and relentlessly gripping from the first page to the last." —Scott Turow, #1 bestselling author of Presumed Innocent**Stalin's Soviet Union strives to be a paradise for its workers, providing for all of their needs. One of its fundamental pillars is that its citizens live free from the fear of ordinary crime and criminals.But in ...