Download or read book Crossing Mandelbaum Gate written by Kai Bird and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-04-20 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *From the Pulitzer Prize-winning coauthor of American Prometheus—the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film Oppenheimer* Now with a new introduction, Kai Bird’s fascinating memoir of his early years spent in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon provides an original and illuminating perspective into the Arab-Israeli conflict. In 1956, four-year-old Kai Bird, son of a charming American diplomat, moved to Jerusalem with his family. Kai could hear church bells and the Muslim call to prayer and watch as donkeys and camels competed with cars for space on the narrow streets. Each day on his way to school, Kai was driven through Mandelbaum Gate, where armed soldiers guarded the line separating Israeli-controlled West Jerusalem from Arab-controlled East. Bird would spend much of his life crossing such lines—as a child in Jerusalem, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and later, as a young man in Lebanon. In Crossing Mandelbaum Gate, a narrative that “rips along like a spy novel” (The New York Times Book Review), Bird’s retelling of “events such as Suez in 1956, the Six Day War of 1967, and Black September in 1970 are as clear and fresh as yesterday” (The Spectator, UK). Bird vividly portrays emblematic figures like George Antonius, author of The Arab Awakening; Jordan’s King Hussein; the Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled; Salem bin Laden; Saudi King Faisal; President Nasser of Egypt; and Hillel Kook, the forgotten rescuer of more than 100,000 Jews during World War II. Bird, his parents sympathetic to Palestinian self-determination and his wife the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, has written a “kaleidoscopic and captivating” (Publishers Weekly) personal history of a troubled region and an indispensable addition to the literature on the modern Middle East.
Download or read book The Mandelbaum Gate written by Muriel Spark and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVDIVFor Barbara Vaughn, a checkpoint between Jordan and the newly formed Israel is the threshold to painful self-discovery/divDIV /divDIV/divDIVBarbara Vaughn is a scholarly woman whose fascination with religion stems partly from a conversion to Catholicism, and partly from her own half-Jewish background. When her boyfriend joins an archaeological excursion to search for additional Dead Sea Scrolls, Vaughn takes the opportunity to explore the Holy Land. But this is 1960, and with the nation of Israel still in its infancy, the British Empire in retreat from the region, and the Eichmann trials in full swing, Vaughn uncovers much deeper mysteries than those found at tourist sites. /divDIV /divDIVBoth an espionage thriller and a journey of faith, The Mandelbaum Gate won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize upon its publication, and is one of Spark’s most compelling novels./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Muriel Spark including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s archive at the National Library of Scotland./divDIV /divDIV/div/div
Download or read book The Road to Fatima Gate written by Michael J. Totten and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Road to Fatima Gate is a first-person narrative account of revolution, terrorism, and war during history's violent return to Lebanon after fifteen years of quiet. Michael J. Totten's version of events in one of the most volatile countries in the world's most volatile region is one part war correspondence, one part memoir, and one part road movie. ... From the Cedar Revolution that ousted the occupying Syrian military regime in 2005 to the devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 to Hezbollah's slow-motion but violent assault on Lebanon's elected government and capital, Totten's account is both personal and comprehensive. He simplifies the bewildering complexity of the Middle East; gains access to major regional players as well as to the man on the street; and personally witnesses most of the events he describes. The Road to Fatima Gate should be indispensable reading for anyone interested in the Middle East, Iran's expansionist foreign policy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, asymmetric warfare, and terrorism in the aftermath of September 11.-from dust jacket.
Download or read book The Good Spy written by Kai Bird and published by Crown. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Good Spy is Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird’s compelling portrait of the remarkable life and death of one of the most important operatives in CIA history – a man who, had he lived, might have helped heal the rift between Arabs and the West. On April 18, 1983, a bomb exploded outside the American Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people. The attack was a geopolitical turning point. It marked the beginning of Hezbollah as a political force, but even more important, it eliminated America’s most influential and effective intelligence officer in the Middle East – CIA operative Robert Ames. What set Ames apart from his peers was his extraordinary ability to form deep, meaningful connections with key Arab intelligence figures. Some operatives relied on threats and subterfuge, but Ames worked by building friendships and emphasizing shared values – never more notably than with Yasir Arafat’s charismatic intelligence chief and heir apparent Ali Hassan Salameh (aka “The Red Prince”). Ames’ deepening relationship with Salameh held the potential for a lasting peace. Within a few years, though, both men were killed by assassins, and America’s relations with the Arab world began heading down a path that culminated in 9/11, the War on Terror, and the current fog of mistrust. Bird, who as a child lived in the Beirut Embassy and knew Ames as a neighbor when he was twelve years old, spent years researching The Good Spy. Not only does the book draw on hours of interviews with Ames’ widow, and quotes from hundreds of Ames’ private letters, it’s woven from interviews with scores of current and former American, Israeli, and Palestinian intelligence officers as well as other players in the Middle East “Great Game.” What emerges is a masterpiece-level narrative of the making of a CIA officer, a uniquely insightful history of twentieth-century conflict in the Middle East, and an absorbing hour-by-hour account of the Beirut Embassy bombing. Even more impressive, Bird draws on his reporter’s skills to deliver a full dossier on the bombers and expose the shocking truth of where the attack’s mastermind resides today.
Download or read book America s Great Game written by Hugh Wilford and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2013-12-03 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the 9/11 attacks to waterboarding to drone strikes, relations between the United States and the Middle East seem caught in a downward spiral. And all too often, the Central Intelligence Agency has made the situation worse. But this crisis was not a historical inevitability—far from it. Indeed, the earliest generation of CIA operatives was actually the region’s staunchest western ally. In America’s Great Game, celebrated intelligence historian Hugh Wilford reveals the surprising history of the CIA’s pro-Arab operations in the 1940s and 50s by tracing the work of the agency’s three most influential—and colorful—officers in the Middle East. Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt was the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt and the first head of CIA covert action in the region; his cousin, Archie Roosevelt, was a Middle East scholar and chief of the Beirut station. The two Roosevelts joined combined forces with Miles Copeland, a maverick covert operations specialist who had joined the American intelligence establishment during World War II. With their deep knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs, the three men were heirs to an American missionary tradition that engaged Arabs and Muslims with respect and empathy. Yet they were also fascinated by imperial intrigue, and were eager to play a modern rematch of the “Great Game,” the nineteenth-century struggle between Britain and Russia for control over central Asia. Despite their good intentions, these “Arabists” propped up authoritarian regimes, attempted secretly to sway public opinion in America against support for the new state of Israel, and staged coups that irrevocably destabilized the nations with which they empathized. Their efforts, and ultimate failure, would shape the course of U.S.–Middle Eastern relations for decades to come. Based on a vast array of declassified government records, private papers, and personal interviews, America’s Great Game tells the riveting story of the merry band of CIA officers whose spy games forever changed U.S. foreign policy.
Download or read book The Color of Truth written by Kai Bird and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-01-10 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Grey is the color of truth." So observed Mac Bundy in defending America's intervention in Vietnam. Kai Bird brilliantly captures this ambiguity in his revelatory look at Bundy and his brother William, two of the most influential policymakers of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. It is a portrait of fiercely patriotic, brilliant and brazenly self-confident men who directed a steady escalation of a war they did not believe could be won. Bird draws on seven years of research, nearly one hundred interviews, and scores of still-classified top secret documents in a masterful reevaluation of America's actions throughout the Cold War and Vietnam.
Download or read book House of Stone written by Anthony Shadid and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2012 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Culture and institutions.
Download or read book Can We Talk About Israel written by Daniel Sokatch and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Jewish Book Award finalist An essential and accessible introduction to one of the most complex, controversial topics in the world, from a leading expert on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When it comes to Israel and Palestine, it can be hard to know what to say. Daniel Sokatch gets it. He heads the New Israel Fund, an organization dedicated to equality and democracy for all Israelis--Arab, Jewish, and otherwise. The question he gets asked, on an almost daily basis, is, "Can't you just explain the Israel situation to me? In, like, 10 minutes or less?" This book is his timely and much-needed answer. Can We Talk About Israel? tells the story of that country and explores why so many people feel so strongly about it without actually understanding it very well at all. Sokatch grapples with a century-long struggle between two peoples that both perceive themselves as (and indeed are) victims. And he explains why Israel (and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) inspires such extreme feelings--why it seems like Israel is the answer to “what is wrong with the world” for half the people in it, and “what is right with the world” for the other half. As Sokatch asks, is there any other topic about which so many intelligent, educated, and sophisticated people express such strongly and passionately held convictions, and about which they actually know so little? Complete with engaging illustrations by Christopher Noxon, Can We Talk About Israel? is an easy-to-read yet penetrating and original look at a subject we could all afford to better understand.
Download or read book Hiroshima s Shadow written by Kai Bird and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Writings on the denial of history and the Smithsonian controversy"--Cover.
Download or read book The Outlier written by Kai Bird and published by Crown. This book was released on 2022-06-14 with total page 817 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Important . . . [a] landmark presidential biography . . . Bird is able to build a persuasive case that the Carter presidency deserves this new look.”—The New York Times Book Review An essential re-evaluation of the complex triumphs and tragedies of Jimmy Carter’s presidential legacy—from the expert biographer and Pulitzer Prize–winning co-author of American Prometheus Four decades after Ronald Reagan’s landslide win in 1980, Jimmy Carter’s one-term presidency is often labeled a failure; indeed, many Americans view Carter as the only ex-president to have used the White House as a stepping-stone to greater achievements. But in retrospect the Carter political odyssey is a rich and human story, marked by both formidable accomplishments and painful political adversity. In this deeply researched, brilliantly written account, Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Kai Bird deftly unfolds the Carter saga as a tragic tipping point in American history. As president, Carter was not merely an outsider; he was an outlier. He was the only president in a century to grow up in the heart of the Deep South, and his born-again Christianity made him the most openly religious president in memory. This outlier brought to the White House a rare mix of humility, candor, and unnerving self-confidence that neither Washington nor America was ready to embrace. Decades before today’s public reckoning with the vast gulf between America’s ethos and its actions, Carter looked out on a nation torn by race and demoralized by Watergate and Vietnam and prescribed a radical self-examination from which voters recoiled. The cost of his unshakable belief in doing the right thing would be losing his re-election bid—and witnessing the ascendance of Reagan. In these remarkable pages, Bird traces the arc of Carter’s administration, from his aggressive domestic agenda to his controversial foreign policy record, taking readers inside the Oval Office and through Carter’s battles with both a political establishment and a Washington press corps that proved as adversarial as any foreign power. Bird shows how issues still hotly debated today—from national health care to growing inequality and racism to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—burned at the heart of Carter’s America, and consumed a president who found a moral duty in solving them. Drawing on interviews with Carter and members of his administration and recently declassified documents, Bird delivers a profound, clear-eyed evaluation of a leader whose legacy has been deeply misunderstood. The Outlier is the definitive account of an enigmatic presidency—both as it really happened and as it is remembered in the American consciousness.
Download or read book American Prometheus written by Kai Bird and published by Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2021-11-25 with total page 667 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ***THE INSPIRATION FOR CHRISTOPHER NOLAN'S NEW FILM OPPENHEIMER*** WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR NONFICTION 'Reads like a thriller, gripping and terrifying' Sunday Times Physicist and polymath, as familiar with Hindu scriptures as he was with quantum mechanics, J. Robert Oppenheimer - director of the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb - was the most famous scientist of his generation. In their meticulous and riveting biography, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin reveal a brilliant, ambitious, complex and flawed man, profoundly involved with some of the momentous events of the twentieth century.
Download or read book The Chairman written by Kai Bird and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2017-01-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against the backgrounds of World War II, the Cold War, the construction of Pax Americana, the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy assassination, and Vietnam, Bird shows us McCloy’s astonishing rise from self-described “chore boy” to “chairman of the Establishment.” His powerful circle shaped the postwar globe. But McCloy stood out among them as a towering figure of achievement: as a Wall Street lawyer who earned the confidence of captains of industry and presidents; as Henry Stimson’s right-hand man at the War Department; as president of the World Bank and chairman of the Chase financial empire; and as presidential adviser. Bird captures every facet of this self-made man. We see McCloy’s commercial acumen as the most in-demand lawyer of Wall Street; his dictatorial will as high commissioner of occupied Germany; and his stoic loyalty as adviser to Presidents FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Ford, and Reagan. Bird brilliantly explores how McCloy came to epitomize the American Establishment and the values of a generation that led the United States through bitter war and unparalleled prosperity.
Download or read book Crossing Mandelbaum Gate written by Kai Bird and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer Prize-winner Kai Bird's vivid memoir of an American childhood spent in the midst of the Arab-Israeli conflict in Jerusalem and Saudi Arabia
Download or read book Bible and Sword written by Barbara Wertheim Tuchman and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Bible and Sword Barbara Tuchman provides a stirring account of the religious, cultural and political motives which led to the British conquest of the Holy Land in 1917 and to the Balfour Declaration.
Download or read book The Spymasters written by Chris Whipple and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Only eleven men and one woman are alive today who have made the life-and-death decisions that come with running the world's most powerful and influential intelligence service. With unprecedented, deep access to nearly all these individuals plus several of their predecessors, Chris Whipple tells the story of an agency that answers to the United States president alone, but whose activities--spying, espionage, and covert action--take place on every continent. At pivotal moments, the CIA acts as a brake on rogue presidents, starting in the mid-seventies with DCI Richard Helms's refusal to conceal Richard Nixon's criminality and continuing to the present as the actions of a CIA whistleblower have ignited impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Since its inception in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency has been a powerful player on the world stage, operating largely in the shadows to protect American interests. For The Spymasters, Whipple conducted extensive, exclusive interviews with nearly every living CIA director, pulling back the curtain on the world's elite spy agencies and showing how the CIA partners--or clashes--with counterparts in Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Topics covered in the book include attempts by presidents to use the agency for their own ends; simmering problems in the Middle East and Asia; rogue nuclear threats; and cyberwarfare"--
Download or read book American Priestess written by Jane Fletcher Geniesse and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2009-09-08 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For generations, The American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem has been a well-known retreat for journalists, diplomats, pilgrims and spies. However, few know the story of Anna Spafford, the enigmatic evangelist who was instrumental in its founding Branded heretics by Jerusalem’s established Christian missionaries when they arrived in 1881, the Spaffords and their followers nevertheless won over Muslims and Jews with their philanthropy. But when her husband Horatio died, Anna assumed leadership, shocking even her adherents by abolishing marriage and establishing an uneasy dictatorship based on emotional blackmail and religious extremism. With a controversial heroine at its core, American Priestess provides a fascinating exploration of the seductive power of evangelicalism as well as an intriguing history of an enduring landmark.
Download or read book Bangladesh the Unfinished Revolution written by Lawrence Lifschultz and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
