Black Wave :Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Rivalry That Unravelled the Middle East

4.40 ( 4,479 Ratings by Goodreads)
Black Wave

Black Wave :Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Rivalry That Unravelled the Middle East

(Author)
4.40 (4,479 Ratings by Goodreads)
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Published: 7 January, 2021
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Description

'Blistering' Sunday Times
'Indispensable' Observer

'Fascinating' The Times
'Brilliant' Peter Frankopan
'Revelatory' Lindsey Hilsum


A timely and unprecedented examination of how the modern Middle East unravelled, and why it started with the pivotal year of 1979. Shortlisted for the Cundhill History Prize 2020

'What happened to us?'

For decades, the question has haunted the Arab and Muslim world, heard across Iran and Syria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and in the author's home country of Lebanon. Was it always so? When did the extremism, intolerance and bloodletting of today displace the region's cultural promise and diversity?

In Black Wave, award-winning journalist and author Kim Ghattas argues that the turning point in the modern history of the Middle East can be located in the toxic confluence of three major events in 1979: the Iranian revolution; the siege of the Holy Mosque in Mecca; and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Before this year, Saudi Arabia and Iran had been working allies and twin pillars of US strategy in the region - but the radical legacy of these events made them mortal enemies, unleashing a process that transformed culture, society, religion and geopolitics across the region for decades to come.

Drawing on a sweeping cast of characters across seven countries over forty years, Ghattas demonstrates how this rivalry for religious and cultural supremacy has fed intolerance, suppressed cultural expression, encouraged sectarian violence, birthed groups like Hezbollah and ISIS and, ultimately, upended the lives of millions. At once bold and intimate, Black Wave is a remarkable and engrossing story of the Middle East as it has never been told before.

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More Details

Type Book
ISBN13 9781472271136
ISBN10 1472271130
Number Of Pages 400
Item Weight 280 g
Product Dimensions 128 x 194 x 34 mm
Publisher / Reseller Headline Publishing Group
Format paperback
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Author's Bio

Kim Ghattas is an Emmy-award winning journalist and writer who covered the Middle East for twenty years for the BBC and the Financial Times. She has also reported on the U.S State Department and American politics. She has been published in the Atlantic, the Washington Post and Foreign Policy, and is currently a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. Born and raised in Lebanon, she now lives between Beirut and Washington D.C.

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