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In Slavery, Agriculture, and Malaria in the Arabian Peninsula, Benjamin Reilly illuminates a previously unstudied phenomenon: the large-scale employment of people of African ancestry as slaves in agricultural oases within the Arabian Peninsula. The key to understanding this unusual system, Reilly argues, is the prevalence of malaria within Arabian Peninsula oases and drainage basins, which rendered agricultural lands in Arabia extremely unhealthy for people without genetic or acquired resistance...

The Arab-Israeli conflict has become a touchstone of international politics and a flash point on college campuses. And yet, how do faculty teach such a contentious topic in class? Taught not only in international relations, peace and conflict resolution, politics and history, and Israel and Middle Eastern studies courses but also in literature, sociology, urban planning, law, cinema, fine art, and business-the subject guarantees wide interest among students. Faculty are challenged to deal with...

Beyond the Arab Cold War brings the Yemen Civil War, 1962-68, to the forefront of modern Middle East History. During the 1960s, in the wake of a coup against Imam Muhammad al-Badr and the formation of the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR), Yemen was transformed into an arena of global conflict. Believing al-Badr to be dead, Egypt, the Soviet Union, and most countries recognized the YAR. But when al-Badr unexpectedly turned up alive, Saudi Arabia and Britain offered support to the deposed Imam, drawing Y...

Building on similarities and exploring differences in the way scholars undertake their research, this volume presents crossdisciplinary communication on the study of borders, frontiers and boundaries through time, with a focus on Turkey. Standing at the dividing/connecting line between Europe and Asia, Turkey emerges as a place carrying a rich history of multiple layers of borders that have been drawn, shifted or unmade from the remote past until today: from Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers to the...

Prison Time in Sana'a tells the story of Dr Abdulkader Al-Guneid's harrowing experience inside jail in Yemen's capital shortly after it was taken over by Houthi rebels. In his hometown of Taiz, Al-Guneid, a medical doctor, had been an outspoken figure on Yemeni politics for decades. In recent years, his social media and interviews were read around the world and attracted a global following from an audience anxious to hear an unbiased explanation of the underlying roots of the conflict. Ultim...

Rarely has a state changed its character so completely in so short a period of time. Previ- ously content to play a role befitting its small size, Qatar was a traditional, risk-averse Gulf monarchy until the early 1990s. A bloodless coup in 1995 brought to power an emerging elite with a progressive vision for the future. Financed by gas exports and protected by a US security umbrella, Qatar diversified its foreign relations to include Iran and Israel, established the satellite broadcaster Al Jaz...

A startling spotlight on the darkest corners of America's "War on Terror," where nothing is quite what it seems. 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? Authors John Kiriakou, who led the...

The report addresses the urgent and growing threat of terrorist travel by Americans to Syria and Iraq. Despite the government's efforts to control this travel, hundreds of Americans have attempted to reach the conflict zones to join the jihadists. Using numerous briefings, interviews, site visits, and document analysis, the Task Force makes thirty-two key findings dealing with government strategy, identification of terrorists, and disruption of foreign fighter travel, including: Key Finding 1:...

A New York Times bestseller! This reference shows how to understand the history and tactics of the global terror group ISIS and how to use that knowledge to defeat it. ISIS the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has taken on the mantle of being the single most dangerous terrorist threat to global security since al-Qaeda. In Defeating ISIS, internationally renowned intelligence veteran and counter-terrorism expert Malcolm Nance, author of The Plot to Hack America and the forthcoming Hacking ISIS,...

Sandra Mackey lived in Saudi Arabia for four years, and as far as the authorities knew, she was simply the wife of an American doctor. But she saw things and traveled to places rarely viewed by any outsider, let alone a Western woman, and she succeeded in smuggling out a series of crucial articles on Saudi culture and politics. The Saudis offers a fascinating portrait of Saudi life, chronicling Mackey's extraordinary travels and experiences and depicting Saudi Arabia's strange metamorphosis from...