Iraq – Since 2003 /

  • The Three Trillion Dollar War : The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes
  • Standard Operating Procedure, Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris (On Abu Ghraib and its aftermath.)
  • Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq, Michael Scheuer
  • The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, Jane Mayer
  • Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid
  • My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me, Mahvish Khan
  • Muqtada, Patrick Cockburn (On the resistance in Iraq.)
  • McCoy’s Marines: Darkside to Baghdad, John Koopman (Rod Nordland: “A chillingly honest account of the bloodthirsty mindset of the Marines, especially when read with the benefit of hindsight.”)
  • My Year in Iraq : The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope, L. Paul Bremer and Malcolm McConnell (Nordland: “Worth reading this account by the proconsul who deserves the blame for so much that went wrong; just bear in mind that it is seeded throughout with lies, damned lies, and outright whoppers.”)
  • Cobra II : The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor
  • Fiasco : The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005, Thomas E. Ricks (Nordland: “A more critical take on the invasion and its aftermath than Cobra II by the Washington Post’s veteran Pentagon correspondent.)
  • The End of Iraq : How American Incompetence Created a War Without End, Peter W. Galbraith
  • Blackwater, The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Jeremy Scahill
  • Licensed to Kill : Hired Guns in the War on Terror, Robert Young Pelton
  • Imperial Life in the Emerald City : Inside Iraq’s Green Zone, Rajiv Chandrasekaran
  • Occupation of Iraq : Winning the War, Losing the Peace, Ali A. Allawi
  • The Fall of Baghdad, Jon Lee Anderson
  • The Assassins’ Gate : America in Iraq, George Packer
  • Night Draws Near : Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War, Anthony Shadid
  • No End in Sight : Iraq’s Descent Into Chaos, Charles Ferguson
  • Inventing Iraq : The Failure of Nation-building and a History Denied, Toby Dodge
  • So Wrong for So Long : How the Press, the Pundits – and the President – Failed in Iraq, Greg Mitchell
  • Suicide Bombers in Iraq : The Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom, Mohammed M. Hafez
  • Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, Ahmed S. Hashim
  • War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq, Richard Engel
  • Invisible Nation : How the Kurds’ Quest for Statehood is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East, Quil Lawrence

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Iraq – Background /

  • The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
  • Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad (Human Rights and Crimes against Humanity), Marnia Lazreg
  • When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World : The Rise and Fall of Islam’s Greatest Dynasty, Hugh Kennedy
  • A Quest in the Middle East : Gertrude Bell and the Making of Modern Iraq, Liora Lukitz
  • Understanding Iraq : The Whole Sweep of Iraqi History, from Genghis Khan’s Mongols to the Ottoman Turks to the British Mandate to the American Occupation, William R. Polk
  • Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II, United States Army (University of Chicago Press)
  • A History of Iraq, Charles Tripp
  • The Marsh Arabs, Wilfred Thesiger
  • Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell, Janet Wallach

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Beyond Iraq – General /

  • A Billion Lives: An Eyewitness Report From the Frontlines of Humanity, Jan Egelund
  • A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin
  • The Post-American World, Fareed Zakaria
  • Superclass : The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making, David Rothkoff
  • The Next American Century : How the US Can Thrive as Other Powers Rise, Nina Hachigian and Mona Sutphen
  • The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan
  • The Sling and the Stone : On War in the 21st Century, Thomas X. Hammes
  • Small Wars : Their Principles and Practice, C. E. Callwell
  • The Second World : Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, Parag Khanna
  • Terror and Consent : The Wars for the Twenty-First Century, Philip Bobbitt
  • Daydream Believers : How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power, Fred Kaplan
  • The Sling and the Stone : On War in the 21st Century, Thomas X. Hammes
  • War in the Shadows : the Guerrilla in History, Robert B. Asprey

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Beyond Iraq – Iran, Middle East, Radical Islam /

  • All the Shah’s Men : An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, Stephen Kinzer
  • Iran Awakening, Shirin Ebadi
  • Empire of the Mind : A History of Iran, Michael Axworthy
  • Modern Iran : Roots and Results of Revolution, Nikki R. Keddie
  • Persepolis : The Story of a Childhood, Marjane Satrapi
  • Persepolis 2 : The Story of a Return, Marjane Satrapi
  • The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, Gilles Kepel
  • Inside the Jihad : My Life with Al Qaeda, A Spy Story, Omar Nasiri
  • Inside Al Qaeda : Global Network of Terror, Gunaratna Rohan
  • Architect of Global Jihad, The Life of al-Qaida Strategist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri, Brynjar Lia
  • Osama : The Making of a Terrorist, Jonathan Randal
  • The Far Enemy : Why Jihad Went Global, Fawaz A. Gerges
  • Insurgency and Terror : Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare, Bard E. O’Neill
  • The Modern Middle East : A History, James Gelvin
  • A Brief History of the Middle East : From Abraham to Arafat, Karen Armstrong
  • Power, Faith and Fantasy : America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, Michael B. Oren
  • The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East, Olivier Roy
  • A History of the Modern Middle East, William L Cleveland
  • Dreams and Shadows : The Future of the Middle East, Robin Wright
  • The Muqaddimah : An Introduction to History, Ibn Khaldun
  • Resurrecting Empire : Western Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East, Rashid Khalidi
  • Epic Encounters : Culture, Media, and US interests in the Middle East since 1945, Melani McAlister
  • Among the Believers : An Islamic Journey, V. S. Naipaul
  • A Literary History of the Arabs, Reynold Alleyne Nicholson
  • The Middle East : A Brief History of the Last 2000 Years, Bernard Lewis
  • What Went Wrong? : The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East, Bernard Lewis
  • Culture and Conflict in the Middle East, Philip Carl Salzman
  • The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, Amin Maalouf
  • Muslims and the News Media, Elizabeth Poole and John E. Richardson
  • The Illuminated Rumi, Jalal al-Din Rumi
  • Orientalism, Edward W Said
  • Arab Cinema : History and Cultural Identity, Viola Shafik
  • Reel Bad Arabs : How Hollywood Vilifies a People, Jack G. Shaheen
  • The Iron Wall : Israel and the Arab World, Avi Shlaim
  • Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict : A History with Documents, Charles D. Smith
  • Historical Atlas of the Middle East, G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville
  • The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922, Donald Quataert
  • The Journey’s Echo : Selections from Freya Stark, Freya Stark
  • Across the Empty Quarter, Wilfred Thesiger
  • Travels Among the Arab Tribes Inhabiting the Countries East of Syria and Palestine : Including a Journey from Nazareth to the Mountains Beyond the Dead, James Silk Buckingham
  • The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence
  • Muhammad; Prophet and Statesman, W. Montgomery Watt
  • The Holy Qu’ran, Muhammed, The Prophet

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Beyond Iraq – Vietnam /

  • Last Reflections On a War, Bernard B. Fall
  • Fire in the Lake, The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam, Frances Fitzgerald
  • A Bright Shining Lie, John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, Neil Sheehan
  • The Quiet American, Graham Greene
  • The Sorrow of War, Bao Ninh

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Beyond Iraq – China, Russia, India, European Union /

  • Day of Empire, Amy Chua
  • Beijing Coma, Ma Jian
  • Charm Offensive : How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World, Joshua Kurlantzick
  • Untapped : The Scramble for Africa’s Oil, John Ghazvinian
  • China Shakes the World : A Titan’s Rise and Troubled Future – and the Challenge for America, James Kynge
  • The Writing on the Wall : Why We Must Embrace China as a Partner or Face It as an Enemy, Will Hutton
  • Kremlin Rising : Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser
  • Getting Russia Right, Dmitri V. Trenin
  • Russia – Lost in Transition : The Yeltsin and Putin Legacies, Lilia Shevtsova
  • The New Cold War : Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West, Edward Lucas
  • Russian Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century and the Shadow of the Past, Robert Levgold
  • Putin’s Russia and the Enlarged Europe, Roy Allison, Margot Light, and Stephen White
  • The Elephant and the Dragon : The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us, Robyn Meredith
  • In Spite of the Gods : The Rise of Modern India, Edward Luce
  • The European Union : A Very Short Introduction, John Pinder and Simon Usherwood
  • Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century, Mark Leonard
  • The United States of Europe, The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy, T.R. Reid
  • The European Dream : How Europe’s Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, Jeremy Rifkin

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Photography /

  • Rethink : The Causes and Consequences of September 11, VII Photo Agency
  • War, VII Photo Agency
  • Allah O Akbar : A Journey Through Militant Islam, Abbas
  • Nazar : Photographs from the Arab World, Negar Azimi et al
  • Iraq : The Space Between, John Lee Anderson and Christophe Bangert
  • 269Unembedded, Thorne Anderson, Rita Leistner, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, Kael Alford
  • Photographic Heritage of the Middle East, 1849 – 1893, Paul Chevedden
  • Kurdistan : In the Shadow of History, Susan Meiselas
  • Telex Iran : In the Name of Revolution, Gilles Peress
  • Focus East : Early Photography in the Near East, 1839 – 85, Nissan N. Perez
  • The Victor Weeps, Fazal Sheikh
  • Trackers, Ahlam Shibli
  • Fear This : A Nation at War, Anthony Suau
  • Majestic Inspirations, Incomparable Souvenirs : 19th Century Photographs of the Mediterranean and the Middle East from the Collection of Brandeis University, Adam Weinberg
  • Perfect Peace, Kai Wiedenhofer
  • Why Mister, Why?, Geert Van Kesteren
  • Return Afghanistan, Zalmai

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