Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Middle East

It's a great irony that Israel was more secure as an idea than its ever been as a nation with an army. In AD 70, when the Second Temple was destroyed, a handful of visionaries saved Judaism by reinventing it - by taking what had been a national religion, identified with a particular place, and turning it into an idea. Jews no longer needed Jerusalem to be Jews.

Sultan Mehmet II, known to his countrymen as -the Conqueror- and to much of Europe as -the Terror of the World,- was once Europe's most feared and powerful ruler. Now, Turkey's most beloved American scholar, John Freely, brings to life this charismatic hero of one of the richest histories in the world. Mehmet reigned for thirty years, during which time his armies extended the borders of his empire halfway across Asia Minor and as far into Europe as Hungary and Italy.

Sasson and Princess Sultana return to tell the world what it means to be a Saudi woman today. Through advances in education and with access to work, Saudi women are breaking through barriers; they are becoming doctors, social workers, business owners. Major steps forward have been made. But this is not the whole story. Sadly, despite changes in the law, women are still subjected to terrible suppression, abuse and crimes of psychological and physical violence.

In this powerful and timely book, one of the most admired and authoritative religious leaders of our time tackles the phenomenon of religious extremism and violence committed in the name of God. If religion is perceived as being part of the problem, Rabbi Sacks argues, then it must also form part of the solution. When religion becomes a zero-sum conceit and individuals are motivated by what Rabbi Sacks calls "altruistic evil", violence between peoples of different beliefs appears to be the only natural outcome.

Children of the Stone chronicles Ramzi's journey - from stone thrower to music student to school founder - and shows how through his love of music he created something lasting and beautiful in a land torn by violence and war. This is a story about the power of music, but also about freedom and conflict, determination and vision.

In the past five years, Israel has mounted three major assaults on the 1.8 million Palestinians trapped behind its blockade of the Gaza Strip. Taken together, Operation Cast Lead (2008-9), Operation Pillar of Defense (2012), and Operation Protective Edge (2014) have resulted in the deaths of some 3,700 Palestinians. Meanwhile a total of 90 Israelis were killed in the invasions. On the face of it, this succession of vastly disproportionate attacks has often seemed frenzied and pathological.

With this book, Sa'ed Atshan asks how transnational progressive social movements can balance struggles for liberation along more than one axis. He explores critical junctures in the history of Palestinian LGBTQ activism, revealing the queer Palestinian spirit of agency, defiance, and creativity, in the face of daunting pressures and forces working to constrict it. Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique explores the necessity of connecting the struggles for Palestinian freedom with the struggle against homophobia.

As the world's attention traces the reluctant social advances in the Middle East, Princess Sultana and her female friends and family have stepped forward to rescue young women in the region who are cruelly mistreated by their husbands, their fathers, and the brutish ISIS soldiers who kidnap them. But inside the Princess' lavish Saudi Arabian palace, sparks of anger and bolts of fear crackle because of the secrets kept to forward her efforts to help women and children.

The Ottoman Empire has long exerted a strong pull on Western minds and hearts. For over 600 years the empire swelled and declined, rising from a dusty fiefdom in the foothills of Anatolia to a power which ruled over the Danube and the Euphrates with the richest court in Europe. But its decline was prodigious, protracted and total.

For seven decades, our understanding of World War II has been shaped by a standard narrative built on conventional wisdom, propaganda, the dramatic but narrow experiences of soldiers on the ground, and an early generation of historians. For his new history, James Holland has spent over 12 years unearthing new research, recording original testimony, and visiting battlefields and archives that have never before been so accessible.

These are the combat experiences of the first Marine to command a special operations task force, recounted against a backdrop of his journey from raw Second Lieutenant to seasoned Colonel and Task Force Commander; from leading Marines through the streets of Mogadishu, Baghdad, Fallujah and Mosul to directing multi-national special operations forces in a dauntingly complex fight against a formidable foe.

With Princess Sultana's Circle, the extraordinary story of Princess Sultana continues. The forced marriage of Sultana's niece to a cruel and depraved older man, and Sultana's discovery of the harem of sex slaves kept by a royal cousin, makes this brave royal princess more determined than ever to fight the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia. Princess Sultana's cause is given an extra sense of urgency against the background of increased dissent against the Al Sa'uds, and the looming specter of Islamic fundamentalism.

Afghanistan traces the historic struggles and the changing nature of political authority in this volatile region of the world, from the Mughal Empire in the 16th century to the Taliban resurgence today. Thomas Barfield introduces listeners to the bewildering diversity of tribal and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, explaining what unites them as Afghans despite the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them.

When the Jews revolted against Rome in 66 CE, Josephus, a Jerusalem aristocrat, was made a general in his nation’s army. Captured by the Romans, he saved his skin by finding favor with the emperor Vespasian. He then served as an adviser to the Roman legions, running a network of spies inside Jerusalem, in the belief that the Jews’ only hope of survival lay in surrender to Rome.

Starting in early 1915, the Ottoman Turks began deporting and killing hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the first major genocide of the 20th century. By the end of the First World War, the number of Armenians in what would become Turkey had been reduced by 90 percent - more than 1,000,000 people. A century later, the Armenian genocide remains controversial but relatively unknown, overshadowed by later slaughters and the chasm separating Turkish and Armenian versions of events.

In The Race for Paradise, Paul M. Cobb offers a new history of the confrontations between Muslims and Franks we now call the "Crusades", one that emphasizes the diversity of Muslim experiences of the European holy war. There is more to the story than Jerusalem, the Templars, Saladin, and the Assassins. Cobb considers the Arab perspective on all shores of the Muslim Mediterranean, from Spain to Syria.

Princess describes the life of Princess Sultana Al Sa'ud, a princess in the royal house of Saudi Arabia. Hidden behind her black veil, she is a prisoner, jailed by her father, her husband, and her country. Sultana tells of appalling oppressions, everyday occurrences that in any other culture would be seen as shocking human rights violations: 13-year-old girls forced to marry men five times their age; young women killed by drowning, stoning, or isolation in the "women's room". Princess is a testimony to a woman of indomitable spirit and courage.

Rorke Denver trains the men who become Navy SEALs - the most creative problem solvers on the modern battlefield, ideal warriors for the kinds of wars America is fighting now. With his years of action-packed mission experience and a top training role, Lieutenant Commander Denver understands exactly how tomorrow’s soldiers are recruited, sculpted, motivated, and deployed. Now, Denver takes you inside his personal story and the fascinating, demanding SEAL training program he now oversees.

Based on interviews with more than 40 survivors, knowledgeable political insiders, and Soviet archives of the period, investigative writer Joan Mellen presents evidence suggesting complicity between US and Israeli intelligence in the attack on Liberty and the more than 50-year long cover-up. What were the underlying motives? Was this a false flag operation conducted in the midst of the Six-Day War? Was it conceivable that Israel would have initiated such an operation without a green light from the United States?

Here is the remarkable story of how medieval Arab scholars made dazzling advances in science and philosophy, and of the itinerant Europeans who brought this knowledge back to the West. For centuries following the fall of Rome, Western Europe was a benighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy, and violent conflict. Meanwhile, Arab culture was thriving, dazzling those Europeans fortunate enough to catch even a glimpse.