Capturing the harsh realities of life in modern-day Afghanistan and plight of Afghan women, the Norwegian journalist provides a portrait of a committed Muslim man, a bookseller, and his family living in post-Taliban Kabul, Afghanistan. Reader's Guide included. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

Describes growing up in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the group of young women who came together at her home in secret every Thursday to read and discuss great books of Western literature, explaining the influence of Lolita, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, and other works on their lives and goals. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.

The author relates his time spent with Afghanistan's mujahidin during their fight against Soviet invaders and provides insight into the circumstances that led to the rise of the Taliban.

Written to coincide with the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Six-Day War, this meticulously detailed study chronicles Israel's pivotal and decisive victory over its Arab neighbors and offers definitive portraits of the individuals who played key roles in the conflict. Reprint.

A leading authority in Near Eastern Studies explores the decline of Islamic power in the Middle East and traces the impact of these events on the modern era.

Exploring the interrelationship between war and politics, a series of lectures by the late French philosopher traces the evolution of a new understanding of society and its relation to war, revealing war as the permanent basis of all institutions of power. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

A provocative critique of Western attitudes about the Orient, this history examines the ways in which the West has discovered, invented, and sought to control the East from the 1700s to the present.

A chronicle of the rich spiritual, political, and cultural institutions of the Arab civilization discusses its thirteen centuries of war, peace, literature, and religion. Reprint. NYT.

Includes the torture photographs in color and the full texts of the secret administration memos on torture and the investigative reports on the abuses at Abu Ghraib. In the spring of 2004, graphic photographs of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by American soldiers in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison flashed around the world, provoking outraged debate. Did they depict the rogue behavior of "a few bad apples"? Or did they in fact reveal that the US government had decided to use brutal tactics in the "war on terror"? The images are shocking, but they do not tell the whole story. The abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents but the result of a chain of deliberate decisions and failures of command. To understand how "Hooded Man" and "Leashed Man" could have happened, Mark Danner turns to the documents that are collected for the first time in this book. These documents include secret government memos, some never before published, that portray a fierce argument within the Bush administration over whether al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were protected by the Geneva Conventions and how far the US could go in interrogating them. There are also official reports on abuses at Abu Ghraib by the International Committee of the Red Cross, by US Army investigators, and by an independent panel chaired by former defense secretary James R. Schlesinger. In sifting this evidence, Danner traces the path by which harsh methods of interrogation approved for suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Guant‡namo "migrated" to Iraq as resistance to the US occupation grew and US casualties mounted. Yet as Mark Danner writes, the real scandal here is political: it "is not about revelation or disclosure but about the failure, once wrongdoing is disclosed, of politicians, officials, the press, and, ultimately, citizens to act." For once we know the story the photos and documents tell, we are left with the questions they pose for our democratic society: Does fighting a "new kind of war" on terror justify torture? Who will we hold responsible for deciding to pursue such a policy, and what will be the moral and political costs to the country?