GREAT WAR FOR CIVILISATION(ISBN=9781400075171)

　　From Publishers Weekly
　　Starred Review. Combining a novelist's talent for atmosphere with a scholar's grasp of historical sweep, foreign correspondent Fisk (Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon) has written one of the most dense and compelling accounts of recent Middle Eastern history yet. The book opens with a deftly juxtaposed account of Fisk's two interviews with Osama bin Laden. In the first, held in Sudan in 1993, bin Laden declared himself "a construction engineer and an agriculturist." He had no time to train mujahideen, he said; he was busy constructing a highway. In the second, held four years later in Afghanistan, he declared war on the Saudi royal family and America.Fisk, who has lived in and reported on the Middle East since 1976, first for the (London) Times and now for the Independent, possesses deep knowledge of the broader history of the region, which allows him to discuss the Armenian genocide 90 years ago, the 2002 destruction of Jenin, and the battlefields of Iraq with equal aplomb. But it is his stunning capacity for visceral description—he has seen, or tracked down firsthand accounts of, all the major events of the past 25 years—that makes this volume unique. Some of the chapters contain detailed accounts of torture and murder, which more squeamish readers may be inclined to skip, but such scenes are not gratuitous. They are designed to drive home Fisk's belief that "war is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death." Though Fisk's political stances may sometimes be controversial, no one can deny that this volume is a stunning achievement. (Nov.)
　　Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

　　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.

　　Robert Fisk received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Trinity College, Dublin and was The Times's (London) Belfast correspondent from 1971-1975 and its Middle East correspondent from 1976-1987. Currently based in Beirut as Middle East Correspondent for The Independent, he has lived in the Middle East for almost three decades and holds more British and international journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent. His last book, Pity the Nation, a history of the war in Lebanon, was published to great acclaim.

Acknowledgements
List of Maps
Preface
1. “One of Our Brothers Had a Dream . . .”
2. “They Shoot Russians”
3. The Choirs of Kandahar
4. The Carpet-Weavers
5. The Path to War
6. “The Whirlwind War”
7. “War against War” and the Fast Train to Paradise
8. Drinking the Poisoned Chalice
9. “Sentenced to Suffer Death”
10. The First Holocaust
11. Fifty Thousand Miles from Palestine
12. The Last Colonial War
13. The Girl and the Child and Love
14. “Anything to Wipe Out a Devil . . .”
15. Planet Damnation
16. Betrayal
17. The Land of Graves
18. The Plague
19. Now Thrive the Armourers . . .
20. Even to Kings, He Comes . . .
21. Why?
22. The Die Is Cast
23. Atomic Dog, Annihilator, Arsonist, Anthrax, Anguish and Agamemnon
24. Into the Wilderness
Notes
Select Bibliography
Chronology
Index