History : Asia

The rise and rise of the Bin Laden family is one of the great stories of the twentieth century; its repercussions have already deeply marked the twenty-first. Until now, however, it is a story that has never been fully told, as the Bin Ladens have successfully fended off attempts to understand the family circles from which Osama sprang. In this the family has been abetted by the kingdom it calls home, Saudi Arabia, one of the most closed societies on earth. Steve Coll’s The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century is the groundbreaking history of a family and its fortune. It chronicles a young illiterate Yemeni bricklayer, Mohamed Bin Laden, who went to the new, oil-rich country of Saudi Arabia and quickly became a vital figure in its development, building great mosques and highways and making himself and many of his children millionaires. It is also a story of the Saudi royal family, whom the Bin Ladens served loyally and without whose capricious favor they would have been nothing. And it is a story of tensions and contradictions in a country founded on extreme religious purity, which then became awash in oil money and dazzled by the temptations of the West. In only two generations the Bin Ladens moved from a famine-stricken desert canyon to luxury jets, yachts, and private compounds around the world, even going into business with Hollywood celebrities. These religious and cultural gyrations resulted in everything from enthusiasm for America—exemplified by Osama’s free-living pilot brother Salem—to an overwhelming determination to destroy it. The Bin Ladens is a meticulously researched, colorful, shocking, entertaining, and disturbing narrative of global integration and its limitations. It encapsulates the unsettling contradictions of globalization in the story of a single family who has used money, mobility, and technology to dramatically varied ends. more...

Price: $35.00

North Korea and South Korea are never far from the news headlines - one for the alleged danger it poses to the world, the other for its apparent capitalist success story. In Bipolar Orders, Hyung Gu Lynn analyzes the processes driving both countries since the 1980s. North Korea has experienced severe economic deterioration and increasing international isolation, while South Korea has undergone democratization and witnessed the emergence of a vibrant consumer culture. Paradoxically, this growing gap in ideologies and material standards has led to improved relations between the two countries. Why has this counterintuitive development occurred? Is North Korea really a threat, and if so, for whom? This book provides a substantive, accessible, and timely examination of the complex and compelling histories of the two Koreas. more...

Price: $80.95

It was supposed to be quick, easy, and cheap: the Bush administration promised American taxpayers that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for it all. But thousands of lives and billions of dollars later, the Iraqi reconstruction is an undeniable failure, overrun by staggering corruption, waste, and incompetence. In BLOOD MONEY, "top-flight. investigative reporter" (Mother Jones) T. Christian Miller reveals how the Bush administration failed to keep its promises and allowed a nation to tumble into chaos. Widely hailed as one of the most important books about the quagmire, BLOOD MONEY is essential reading for anyone who cares about the fate of Iraq, and about America's place in the world. more...

Price: $10.99

Presents a framework for incorporating an Islamic and historically contextualised philosophy into a continuum of world philosophers. more...

Price: $190.00

Narrates the complex tale of Israel's people and their modern state, established thousands of years after the destruction of the old one, against the backdrop of exile, anti-Semitism, Zionism, and the Holocaust. more...

Price: $45.00