As a young child, Paul B. Skousen grew up mesmerized by a faded Asian carpet that hung high in the main hallway of his family's home. It depicted desert nomads seated on a rug spread over sand, camped between palm trees, their camels pastured nearby. A couple of hunting dogs stood anxious, awaiting their meal, and in the background rose the rolling desert sea of nondescript dunes, forever undulating toward the horizon, frozen in time. It was a destination he longed to see for himself-and over the years that followed, he did. Skousen enjoys visiting the Middle East for archeology digs or just for renewing friendships. He is a journalist by trade, finished graduate school at Georgetown University, worked as an analyst at the CIA, and was assigned to the Situation Room as an intelligence officer in the White House. He is a professor of communications, married father of ten, grandfather to 37 (and growing), and is the author of the three-volume Bassam series and several non-fiction books on politics and history.
