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The Arab Spring was a watershed in Arab history, which gave young protesters the impetus to challenge established and entrenched dictatorial regimes for the first time and to demand democracy. This unique book reviews specialist literature and provides a profile of the personality disorder of narcissism displayed by five leaders - Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Qaddafi, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Bashar al-Assad - together with the related syndromes of paranoia, hysteria, and sociopathy. The book argues that the responses of these leaders to the challenges they faced indicate that they were psychologically incapable of facing reality, and indeed displayed pathological symptoms ...
Can peoples and nations, who have been pitted against each other in geopolitically manipulated conflict, overcome their adversarial relationship and achieve reconciliation? This book answers the question, examining the Armenian genocide of 1915, the two Iraq wars and embargo regime, as well as the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians beginning in 1948. It portrays these seminal moments of the 20th century through the eyes of those who were children at the time. Their first-hand accounts of the dramatic events are corroborated by documented historical research, in the effort to identify which political forces were ultimately responsible and why. An episode from Dante's Divine Comedy - the pil...
Features 25 different scientists and the ideas which may not have made them famous, but made history... Typically, we remember our greatest scientists from one single invention, one new formula or one incredible breakthrough. This narrow perspective does not give justice to the versatility of many scientists who also earned a reputation in other areas of science. James Watt, for instance, is known for inventing the steam engine, yet most people do not know that he also invented the copier. Alexander Graham Bell of course invented the telephone, but only few know that he invented artificial breathing equipment, a prototype of the ‘iron lung’. Edmond Halley, whose name is associated with the comet that visits Earth every 75 years, produced the first mortality tables, used for life insurances. This entertaining book is aimed at anyone who enjoys reading about inventions and discoveries by the most creative minds. Detailed illustrations of the forgotten designs and ideas enrich the work throughout.
When, in 1997, the International Atomic Energy Agency unanimously elected Mohamed ElBaradei as its next Director General, few observers could have forecast the dramatic role he would play over the next 12 years. Certainly, the stage onto which Dr. ElBaradei stepped - featuring Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Kim Jong-Il's North Korea, Muammar al-Gaddafi's Libya, and the Islamic Republic of Iran - gave ample opportunity for high-stakes and high-profile decision-making. But no one could have predicted that ElBaradei would be 'the man in the middle' of so many nuclear conflicts over so sustained a period of time. And after he and the IAEA were jointly awarded the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, his role as midd...
Drawing on archival sources, reportage and moving personal stories, de Waal tells the full story of Armenian-Turkish relations since the Genocide in all its extraordinary twists and turns. He looks behind the propaganda to examine the realities of a terrible historical crime and the divisive "politics of genocide" it produced.
In the early 1900s, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) committed the Armenian Genocide as part of their pursuit of Pan-Turkist and Pan-Islamist aspirations known as "ittihadism." The CUP also sought to Turkify non-Muslim property, reminiscent of the Aryanization program in Nazi Germany that targeted Jewish assets. The ittihadist dream was shattered when the Ottoman Empire collapsed following their defeat in the Great War. Established in 1923 as an ittihadist project, the Republic of Turkey adopted "ittihadism" as its fundamental ideology as well. The desire to reach Central Asia and unite with other Turkic nations was initially reignited during World War II. Nonetheless, the dream was...
"Scott's brilliantly perceptive account of the underpinnings of American governmental authority should be made required reading. The book vividly depicts the political forces that have pushed this country toward an abyss, threatening constitutional democracy at home and world peace abroad. Its central message can be understood as an urgent wake-up call to everyone concerned with the future of America."—Richard Falk, author of The Great Terror War "Peter Dale Scott is one of that tiny and select company of the most brilliantly creative and provocative political-historical writers of the last half century. The Road to 9/11 further secures his distinction as truth-teller and prophet. He shows...
This book dwells upon the various aspects of the Turkish foreign policy in the different regions of the world, especially with the dawn of the twenty-first century. Turkey has attracted international attention due to a marked transformation in the country’s domestic and external realms, which in turn, has led to an increased activism in its foreign policy actions. Particularly, Turkey’s economic rise has fuelled the country’s ambition and quest for a more significant role in international affairs. These transformations have come about with the ascendance of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) [or Justice & Development Party (JDP)] to power in 2002. Turkey, under the AKP, moved towards a ‘new’ direction in the foreign policy and consequently endeavoured to play a larger role in West Asia (Middle East), the Balkans, southern Mediterranean, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Africa and Asia. The country has emerged as a multi-regional player having stakes and tractions on a range of issues in these regions. The several discernible aspects of Turkey’s involvement are dealt with in the contributions to this volume.
On April 10, 2003, as the world watched a statue of Saddam Hussein come crashing down in the heart of Baghdad, a mob of looters attacked the Iraq National Museum. Despite the presence of an American tank unit, the pillaging went unchecked, and more than 15,000 artifacts—some of the oldest evidence of human culture—disappeared into the shadowy worldwide market in illicit antiquities. In the five years since that day, the losses have only mounted, with gangs digging up roughly half a million artifacts that had previously been unexcavated; the loss to our shared human heritage is incalculable. With The Rape of Mesopotamia, Lawrence Rothfield answers the complicated question of how this whol...
A powerful examination of soulful journeys made to recover memory and recuperate stolen pasts in the face of unspeakable histories. Survivors of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 took refuge across the globe. Traumatized by unspeakable brutalities, the idea of returning to their homeland was unthinkable. But decades later, some children and grandchildren felt compelled to travel back, having heard stories of family wholeness in beloved homes and of cherished ancestral towns and villages once in Ottoman Armenia, today in the Republic of Turkey. Hoping to satisfy spiritual yearnings, this new generation called themselves pilgrims—and their journeys, pilgrimages. Carel Bertram joined scores of th...