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Saudi Arabia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, a major player on the international stage and the site of Islam's two holiest cities. It is also one of the world's only absolute monarchies. How did Saudi Arabia get to where it is today?

From award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters comes a revelatory look at the inner workings of the world's most powerful royal family, and how the struggle for succession produced Saudi Arabia's charismatic but ruthless Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS.​

Acclaimed Israeli intelligence analyst Avi Melamed has spent more than 30 years interpreting Middle East affairs. His long-awaited Inside the Middle East challenges widely accepted perceptions and provides a gripping and uniquely enlightening guide to make sense of the events unfolding in the region. Melamed considers all the major power players in the Middle East, explains the underlying issues, and creates a three-dimensional picture, an illustration that connects the dots and provides a fascinating road map.

The Convenient Terrorist is the definitive inside account of the capture, torture, and detention of Abu Zubaydah, the first “high-value target” captured by the CIA after 9/11. But was Abu Zubaydah, who is still being indefinitely held by the United States under shadowy circumstances, the blue-ribbon capture that the Bush White House claimed he was?

In this captivating and visionary audiobook, international businesswoman and cultural ambassador Birgit Maria Kemphues reveals the hidden formula behind the UAE’s meteoric rise. With humour, insight, and heartfelt stories, she decodes the unwritten laws of success—from boardrooms to desert tents, from high heels to humility.

At its height in 660 BCE, the kingdom of Assyria stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. It was the first empire the world had ever seen. Here, historian Eckart Frahm tells the epic story of Assyria and its formative role in global history. Assyria’s wide-ranging conquests have long been known from the Hebrew Bible and later Greek accounts. But nearly two centuries of research now permit a rich picture of the Assyrians and their empire beyond the battlefield.

Contrary to popular assumption, Arab women were instrumental in shaping world history. Between Rome's intervention in the Arabian Peninsula and the Arab conquests, noblewomen ruled independently, conducting trade and making war. Their power was often celebrated as queen, priestess and goddess. With time they delegated power to the most important holy men of their age, influencing Arabian paganism, Christianity and Islam forever.

There is a conventional wisdom about oil that the US military presence in the Persian Gulf is what guarantees access to this strategic resource; that the "special" relationship with Saudi Arabia is necessary to stabilize an otherwise volatile market; and that these assumptions in turn provide Washington enormous leverage over Europe and Asia. Except, the conventional wisdom is wrong.

The Hittites were mentioned in the Bible. They were an Anatolian people that contributed to creating a kingdom in Kussara before 1750 BC, the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom between 1750 and 1650 BC, and finally an empire based upon Hattusa in north-central Anatolia around 1650 BC. Under uppiluliuma I, the empire reached its peak in the mid-14th century BC, when it ruled over much of Anatolia and areas of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia.

Nineveh was an age-old Assyrian city in Upper Mesopotamia, near Mosul in modern-day Northern Iraq. It was the capital and biggest city of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and the world's biggest city for some decades, and is on the eastern bank of the Tigris River. It's now a prevalent name for the portion of Mosul that's on the Tigris' eastern bank, and it is also the name of the nation's Nineveh Governorate. It was the world's largest city for about 50 years till it was sacked by a union of its previous subject tribes.

The Achaemenid Persian kings ruled over the largest empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the steppes of Asia and from Ethiopia to Pakistan. In Persians, historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones tells the epic story of this dynasty and the world it ruled. Drawing on Iranian inscriptions, cuneiform tablets, art, and archaeology, he shows how the Achaemenid Persian Empire was the world’s first superpower—one built, despite its imperial ambition, on cooperation and tolerance. This is the definitive history of the Achaemenid dynasty and its legacies in modern-day Iran.

The Mitanni Empire came to prominence at a time when the Egyptians, the Hittites, and the Assyrians were all angling for supremacy. Mitanni made alliances and conquered other lands, excelled at the military art of charioteering, suffered invasions, endured assassinations, and saw a dynasty rise and fall. For more than 3,000 years, the Mitanni Empire remained largely forgotten. Recently, archaeological excavations and translations of ancient texts have shed some light on these remarkable people who were the equals of their more-famous peers in Egypt, Hatti, and Assyria.

As the tee-shirt slogans say, “If you can read this, thank the Phoenicians". The Phoenician achievements include creating the world’s first alphabet, which consisted of 22 consonant letters. If you’re sipping wine as you read, that’s another reason to thank the Phoenicians. From their travels, they learned which grapes were most suited for winemaking and spread those vines to the places along their trading routes. The Phoenicians were the masters of the Mediterranean Sea.

As the Eastern Roman Empire and Sasanian Empire began to expand in the region through a combination of warfare, trade, and diplomacy, a number of Arab tribes caught in the middle coalesced to form their own powerful dynasties and states, one of which was the Lakhmid Dynasty. The Lakhmid Dynasty lasted for more than 300 years, which is an incredible span of time, considering how few states at the time came close to that. The Lakhmid Dynasty was able to survive and thrive for so long by being an effective middleman and power broker in the ever-changing geopolitical landscape.

In the history of philosophy, few topics are so relevant to today's cultural and political landscape as philosophy in the Islamic world. Yet, this remains one of the lesser-known philosophical traditions. In this Very Short Introduction, Peter Adamson explores the history of philosophy among Muslims, Jews, and Christians living in Islamic lands, from its historical background to thinkers in the 20th century.

The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic Asian antithesis of the Christian European West. But the reality was starkly different: the Ottomans’ multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious domain reached deep into Europe’s heart. Indeed, the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans. Recounting the Ottomans’ remarkable rise from a frontier principality to a world empire, historian Marc David Baer traces their debts to their Turkish, Mongolian, Islamic, and Byzantine heritage.

The Ottoman Sultan called for a "Great Jihad" against the Entente powers at the start of the First World War. He was building on half a century of conflict between British colonialism and the people of the Middle East and North Africa. Resistance to Western violence increasingly took the form of radical Islamic insurgency.

At the behest of his teacher and some of the rulers of Saudi Arabia, al-Shaykh 'Abd Allah al-Qar'awi penned the story of his life and work. His memoirs, which were originally published in al-Manhal magazine, cover his family lineage, his birth, his upbringing, his education, his travels, his travails, and his tireless efforts to spread tawhid and uproot shirk and heresies in Southern Saudi Arabia and Northern Yemen. This work is a testimony to Shaykh al-Qar'awi's patience, resolve, and adherence to the methodology of the Prophets and Messengers.

The history of the Persian Empire (or Empires) stretches from ancient times well into the 20th century. Through biblical events, to the dawn and spread of Islam, to the revolutions of the 20th century, Persia - or Iran - has played an integral role in nearly all major events of world history. Uncover the fascinating story of this influential and unique civilization.

In the seventh and eighth centuries AD, armies inspired by the new religion of Islam burst out of Arabia to subjugate the Levant, southwest Asia, North Africa and the Iberian peninsula. These Arab conquests followed immediately after the Prophet Mohammed's death in 632. By this time, against all the odds, he had managed to unite the feuding tribes of Arabia at the point of his sword. The Muslim conquests lasted until 750, by which time several generations of marauding Arab armies had carved out an Islamic empire which, in size and population, rivalled that of Rome at its zenith.