The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East
An astonishing and timely account of 50 years of bloodshed and tragedy in the Middle East from one of our finest and most revered journalists.‘The Great War for Civilisation’ is written with passion and anger, a reporter’s eyewitness account of the Middle East’s history. All the most dangerous men of the past quarter century in the region – from Osama bin Laden to Ayatollah Khomeini, from Saddam to Ariel Sharon – come alive in these pages. Fisk has met most of them, and even spent the night out at a guerrilla camp with Bin Laden himself.In a narrative of blood and mass killing, Fisk tells the story of the growing hatred of the West by millions of Muslims, the West's cynical support for the Middle East's most ruthless dictators and America's ever more powerful military presence in the world's most dangerous lands as well as its uncritical, unconditional support for Israel's occupation of Palestinian land. It is also a story of journalists at war, of the rage, humour and frustration of the correspondents who spend their lives reporting the first draft of history, their weaknesses and cowardice, their courage and truth-telling. After reading ‘The Great War for Civilisation’ the reader grasps just why those 19 suicide pilots changed the world on September 11th.Assessing the situation right up to the present day and reporting from the heart of a bombed-out Baghdad, Fisk examines the factors leading up to the coalition forces entering Iraq, and discusses possible outcomes of long-term involvement there.
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THE GREAT WAR FOR CIVILISATION
The Conquest of the Middle East
ROBERT FISK
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
This revised eBook edition published by Fourth Estate in 2014
First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2005
Previously published in paperback by Harper Perennial in 2006
Copyright © Robert Fisk 2005, 2006
Quotation of Carl Sandburg’s ‘Grass’ taken from Chicago Poems, copyright 1916 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston and renewed 1944 by Carl Sandburg, reproduced by permission of Harcourt Inc.
Quotation from W. B. Yeats’s ‘Lapiz Lazuli’ reproduced by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of Michael B. Yeats.
Quotation from Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (edited and translated 1954 by Louis and Aylmer Maude) reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press.
Quotation from G. B. Shaw’s Major Barbara reproduced by permission of The Society of Authors, on behalf of the Bernard Shaw Estate.
Quotation from T. S. Eliot’s preface to The Dark Side of the Moon reproduced by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
Robert Fisk asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The publishers have tried to trace and acknowledge copyright-holders,
but would be eager to rectify any omissions.
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Source ISBN: 9781841150086
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2014 ISBN: 9780007370405 Version: 2017-01-12
‘There is nobody in British journalism to match Robert Fisk. This book is his testament … His technique is well-honed: a vivid eyewitness account, unmatchable quotes and the killer detail that everyone else has missed’
Sunday Times
‘Brilliant … powerfully written. He has turned a slightly dubious and over-romanticised craft into an honourable vocation’
PHILLIP KNIGHTLEY, Independent on Sunday
‘This book will make Robert Fisk an even greater star—deeply moving’
Literary Review
‘A remarkable book’
New Statesman
‘Fisk is one of the best-known reporters in the world … He interleaves political analysis, recent history and his own adventures with the real stories which concern him [and] writes with a marvellous resource of image and language. His investigative reporting is lethally painstaking’
NEAL ACHERSON, Independent
‘Part-memoir, all heart, this 1,328-page behemoth will delight Fisk’s fans, infuriate his foes and fascinate all’
DONALD MORRISON, Financial Times
‘A fierce indictment of Britain and the United States’
Sunday Telegraph
‘A mammoth and magisterial work, the definitive summation of what has gone wrong in the West’s foreign policies towards Arabia. It should be compulsory reading for those who aspire to lead’
Scottish Sunday Herald
‘It is a history book which journalists, politicians and academics will turn to again and again in the years ahead to grasp the details of the Middle East’
WILLIAM GRAHAM, Irish News
‘Fisk is a gifted writer and an accomplished storyteller … [readers] will enjoy the colorful narrative [and] the wealth of hard-won narrative detail accumulated over his decades of intrepid reporting’
Economist
‘Vivid, graphic, intense and very personal … this is a book of unquestionable importance’
Washington Post
For Bill and Peggy, who taught me to love books and history
CONTENTS
1 ‘One of Our Brothers Had a Dream …’
7 ‘War against War’ and the Fast Train to Paradise
8 Drinking the Poisoned Chalice
11 Fifty Thousand Miles from Palestine
13 The Girl and the Child and Love
14 ‘Anything to Wipe Out a Devil …’
| The Middle East | |
| Afghanistan |
