The Middle East, often referred to as the cradle of the three monotheisms, is saturated with symbolism. Situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa and Europe, it is a land marked by the rich confluence of religions and peoples.  At the same time, it has been the focal point of endemic tensions and conflicts, many of which stretch back into the mists of time.  In this new history of the Middle East, Jean-Pierre Filiu looks beyond religion and focuses his attention on the processes by which powers and their areas of domination were established over time.  His starting point is 395 AD, the year when the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western halves: at that point, the Middle East emerged as a specific entity, freed from external domination, and a Christianity of the East asserted itself, turned towards Byzantium rather than towards Rome.  From this point on, Filiu follows a strictly Middle Eastern dynamics, tracing the rise and fall of powers linked to the three principal poles of Egypt, Syria and Iraq and recounting the procession of empires, invasions and assertions of imperialist ambition that have characterized the region since then.  The book closes in 2022, when the men and women of the Middle East are still struggling for the right to define their destiny by telling their stories in their own voices. This magisterial and up-to-date history of the Middle East will be essential reading for students and scholars of history and politics and for anyone interested in history of one of the most important and contested regions of the modern world.

In the third volume of their graphic history of US and Middle East relations, Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B. cover the tumultuous period that began with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and ended with Obama's decision, in 2013, not to intervene in Syria. Taking in the First Gulf War, the rise of al-Qaeda, the military response to the September 11 attacks and the present conflict in Syria, Best of Enemies: Part Three is propelled by a clash between four US presidents and their Middle Eastern antagonists: on the one hand, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama; on the other, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Bashar al-Assad. Covering thirty years of conflict and diplomacy, Best of Enemies: Part Three is a breezy and engaging guide to the events that shaped our current politics, from the rise of populism and the so-called Islamic State to the global refugee crisis. |In the third volume of their graphic history of US and Middle East relations, Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B. cover the tumultuous period that began with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and ended with Obama's decision, in 2013, not to intervene in Syria. Taking in the First Gulf War, the rise of al-Qaeda, the military response to the September 11 attacks and the present conflict in Syria, Best of Enemies: Part Three is propelled by a clash between four US presidents and their Middle Eastern antagonists: on the one hand, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama; on the other, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Bashar al-Assad. Covering thirty years of conflict and diplomacy, Best of Enemies: Part Three is a breezy and engaging guide to the events that shaped our current politics, from the rise of populism and the so-called Islamic State to the global refugee crisis.

In his disturbing and timely book Jean-Pierre Filiu lays bare the strategies and tactics employed by the Middle Eastern autocracies, above all those of Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Algeria, that set out to crush the democratic uprisings of the 'Arab Revolution'. In pursuit of these goals they turned to the intelligence agencies and internal security arms of the 'deep state', the armed forces and to street gangs such as the Shabiha to enforce their will. Alongside physical intimidation, imprisonment and murder, Arab counter- revolutionaries discredited and split their opponents by boosting Salafi - Jihadi groups such as Islamic State. They also released from prison hardline Islamists and secretly armed and funded them. The full potential of the Arab counter-revolution surprised most observers, who thought they had seen it all from the Arab despots: their perversity, their brutality, their voracity. But the wider world underestimated their ferocious readiness to literally burn down their countries in order to cling to absolute power.Bashar al-Assad clambered to the top of this murderous class of tyrants, driving nearly half of the Syrian population in to exile and executing tens of thousands of his opponents. He has set a grisly precedent, one that other Arab autocrats are sure to follow in their pursuit of absolute power.

This is an eye-opening exploration of a troubling phenomenon: the fast-growing belief in Muslim countries that the end of the world is at hand--and with it the "Great Battle," prophesied by both Sunni and Shii tradition, which many believers expect will begin in the Afghan-Pakistani borderlands. Jean-Pierre Filiu uncovers the role of apocalypse in Islam over the centuries, and highlights its extraordinary resurgence in recent decades. Identifying 1979 as a decisive year in the rise of contemporary millenarian speculation, he stresses the ease with which subsequent events in the Middle East have been incorporated into the intellectual universe of apocalyptic propagandists. Filiu also shows how Christian and Jewish visions of the Final Judgment have stimulated alarmist reaction in Islamic lands, both in the past and today, and examines the widespread fear of Christian Zionist domination as an impetus to jihad. Though the overwhelming majority of Muslims remains unpersuaded, the mounting conviction in the imminence of apocalypse is a serious matter, especially for those who are preparing for it.