I was eleven during the first Gulf War, and the media coverage of it stunted my understanding of war and politics for a long time. It's a revelation to find out what it looked like to a good journalist at the time. If you want a better understanding of recent Middle east history, this tome is a distillation of years of courageous reportage. Fisk is a truly gripping writer—he mixes fascinating on-the-ground narrative with deeply informed historical analysis that connects the dots and looks for causes. Most of all, there is blazing moral fury. War, Fisk says, "represents the tottal failure of the human spirit," and never once does he lose sight of that. —Recommended by Matt, City Lights Books
A sweeping and dramatic history of the last half century of conflict in the Middle East from an award-winning journalist who has covered the region for over thirty years, The Great War for Civilisation unflinchingly chronicles the tragedy of the region from the Algerian Civil War to the Iranian Revolution; from the American hostage crisis in Beirut to the Iran-Iraq War; from the 1991 Gulf War to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. A book of searing drama as well as lucid, incisive analysis, The Great War for Civilisation is a work of major importance for today's world.
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