Since the withdrawal of US occupying forces, international attention has shifted away from Iraq – but life for Iraqis has become no easier. Deadly bombings are still all too common, sectarian violence has soared and all-pervading corruption means tha...

For sale in CIS only! Vladimir Putin has almost by stealth transformed himself into an historic Russian figure. His undeniable political dominance was reflected in his return to presidential control after the March 2012 elections, having placed an o...

Israel's victory in the June 1967 Six Day War provided a unique opportunity for resolving the decades-old Arab-Zionist conflict. Having seized the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights, Israel for the first time in its...

From the first Arab-Islamic Empire of the mid-seventh century to the Ottomans, the last great Muslim empire, the story of the Middle East has been the story of the rise and fall of universal empires and, no less important, of imperialist dreams. So a...

In February 2011, following an extraordinary eighteen days of continual protest by the Egyptian people, President Mubarak agreed to resign, bringing thirty years of a repressive and stagnant regime to an end. In June 2012, a new president was elected...

For more than 60 years, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have lived as Israeli citizens within the borders of the nation formed at the end of the 1948 conflict. Occupying a precarious middle ground between the Jewish citizens of Israel and the d...

The state of Israel is often spoken of as a haven for the Jewish people, a place rooted in the story of a nation dispersed, wandering the earth in search of their homeland. Born in adversity but purportedly nurtured by liberal ideals, Israel has neve...

<p>Situated north of the Himalayas, Tibet is famous for its unique culture and its controversial assimilation into modern China. Yet Tibet in the twenty-first century can only be properly understood in the context of its extraordinary history. Sam va...

British General Sir Allan Cunningham was appointed in 1945 as high commissioner of Palestine, and served in this capacity until the end of the British mandate on May 15, 1948. The three years of Cunningham's tenure were tremendously complex political...

For sale in CIS only! When the convulsions of the Arab Spring first became manifest in Syria in March 2011, the Ba'athist regime was quick to blame the protests on the "Syrian Muslim Brotherhood" and its "al-Qaeda affiliates". But who are these Isla...