The Rock of Jerusalem is one of the world s most spiritually resonant and politically contentious sites: where Adam first stepped upon leaving Paradise, Abraham attempted to sacrifice Isaac, Jesus preached, and Muhammad began his night journey to heaven, . Sorting through the rubble of the three competing faiths, Kanan Makiya has" "woven a vivid tapestry from centuries of legend and belief to imagine the origins of Islam s first monument, the Dome of the Rock. A narrative of mythic power, The Rock offers a grand tour of seventh-century Jerusalem and by reminding us of how much Jews and...

Makiya first gives us the stories of Khalil, Abu Haydar, Omar, Mustafa, and Taimour--the Arab and Kurdish heroes of this book. Their testimony, revealing the true extent of occupation, prejudice, revolution, and routinized violence, is a compelling example of the literature of witness. He then links these tales of survival to an examination of the Arab intelligentsia's response to Saddam Hussein and the Gulf War, comparing the flood of condemnation of the West with the trickle of protest over Saddam's mass murder campaign against the Kurds In his exploration of these "landscapes of cruelty...

First published in 1989, just before the Gulf War broke out, Republic of Fear was the only book that explained the motives of the Saddam Hussein regime in invading and annexing Kuwait. This edition, updated in 1998, has a substantial introduction focusing on the changes in Hussein's regime since the Gulf War.

In 1968 a coup d'etat brought into power an extraordinary regime in Iraq, one that stood apart from other regimes in the Middle East. Between 1968 and 1980, this new regime, headed by the Arab Ba'th Socialist party, used ruthless repression and relentless organization to...