The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East - Softcover

Fisk, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841150088 ISBN 13: 9781841150086

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2006

Synopsis

Robert Fisk’s bestselling eyewitness account of the events that have shaped the Middle East is alive with vivid reporting and incisive historical analysis.

The history of the Middle East is an epic story of tragedy, betrayal and world-shaking events. It is a story that Robert Fisk has been reporting for over thirty years. His masterful narrative spans the most volatile regions of the Middle East, chronicling with both rage and compassion the death by deceit of tens of thousands of Muslims, Christians and Jews.

Robert Fisk’s remarkable history is also the tale of a journalist at war – learning of the 9/11 attacks while aboard a passenger jet, reporting from a bombed-out Baghdad, interviewing Osama bin Laden – and of the courage and frustration of a life spent writing the first draft of history.

About this title

Review:

‘For sheer bravery, dazzling prose, three interviews with Osama bin Laden and an unrivalled collection of awards won over three decades, there is nobody to match Robert Fisk. This book is his testament.’ Sunday Times

‘Brilliant...powerfully written.’ Independent on Sunday

‘A remarkable book.’ New Statesman

‘Fisk writes with a marvellous resource of image and language. His investigative reporting is lethally painstaking.’ Neal Ascherson, Independent

‘His forte is straight reporting, such as his three interviews with Osama bin Laden. At least as good are his meetings with Saddam Hussein, Khomeini and Sadeq Khalkhali, the hanging judge of the Iranian revolution, and his close-ups of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the launch of Saddam's war against Iran, an ambush by Islamists of an Algerian police patrol, and a lift into trouble in an Apache attack helicopter on the Iraq/Turkey border.’ Guardian

‘A mammoth and magisterial work, the definitive summation of what has gone wrong in the West’s foreign policies towards Arabia.’ Scottish Sunday Herald

‘A stimulating and absorbing book, by a man who speaks Arabic, who has known the region better than most, and has met the leading players, from bin Laden to Ahmad Chalabi. A formidable production.’ New York Times

‘Full of furious, vivid and highly personalised writing...An important book by an intrepid and talented writer.’ Literary Review

‘Vivid, graphic, intense and very personal...this is a book of unquestionable importance.’ Washington Post

Synopsis:

This is an astonishing and timely account of 50 years of bloodshed and tragedy in the Middle East from one of our finest and most revered journalists. "The Great War for Civilisation" is written with passion and anger, a reporter's eyewitness account of the Middle East's history. All the most dangerous men of the past quarter century in the region - from Osama bin Laden to Ayatollah Khomeini, from Saddam to Ariel Sharon - come alive in these pages. Fisk has met most of them, and even spent the night out at a guerrilla camp with Bin Laden himself. In a narrative of blood and mass killing, Fisk tells the story of the growing hatred of the West by millions of Muslims, the West's cynical support for the Middle East's most ruthless dictators and America's ever more powerful military presence in the world's most dangerous lands as well as its uncritical, unconditional support for Israel's occupation of Palestinian land. It is also a story of journalists at war, of the rage, humour and frustration of the correspondents who spend their lives reporting the first draft of history, their weaknesses and cowardice, their courage and truth-telling.

After reading "The Great War for Civilisation" the reader grasps just why those 19 suicide pilots changed the world on September 11th. Assessing the situation right up to the present day and reporting from the heart of a bombed-out Baghdad, Fisk examines the factors leading up to the coalition forces entering Iraq, and discusses possible outcomes of long-term involvement there.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1841150088
• ISBN 13: 9781841150086
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 1392