Here are 100 books that Compulsion in Religion fans have personally recommended if you like
Compulsion in Religion.
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I am a historian of the Cold War and early post-Cold War period, focusing on Soviet/ Russian foreign policy in Afghanistan and in the Middle East in the 1970s and the 1980s. These are exciting topics on which an increasing number of new documents are released each year. I have a research project and lecture about these issues at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. But academia is my second career. Before my Ph.D., I worked as an aid worker, including for two years in the Middle East. I was in the region during the height of the Syrian crisis, notably running humanitarian multi-sector needs assessments.
I love how this book takes a familiar story and twists it in unexpected ways. In this classic of nonfiction on the Middle East, Scott Anderson tells the real story of Lawrence of Arabia.
I love how he does so by combining sound research with a writing style that makes the book read like a novel. Ten years after reading the book, I still remember its protagonists–T.E. Lawrence (obviously), the German agent of influence, the American oilman, and a Romanian-born Zionist agronomist. Their fates collide and unfold as the reader sees the Modern Middle East take shape.
The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War One was, in the words of T.E. Lawrence, 'a sideshow of a sideshow'. Amidst the slaughter in European trenches, the Western combatants paid scant attention to the Middle Eastern theatre. As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far removed from the corridors of power.
At the centre of it all was Lawrence. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in the sands of Syria; by 1917 he was battling both…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am a historian of the Cold War and early post-Cold War period, focusing on Soviet/ Russian foreign policy in Afghanistan and in the Middle East in the 1970s and the 1980s. These are exciting topics on which an increasing number of new documents are released each year. I have a research project and lecture about these issues at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. But academia is my second career. Before my Ph.D., I worked as an aid worker, including for two years in the Middle East. I was in the region during the height of the Syrian crisis, notably running humanitarian multi-sector needs assessments.
I felt it was the most narratively satisfying of Steve Coll’s many excellent books. If others are better at tackling big issues and uncovering ‘smoking guns,’ this one reads like a fiction novel.
The story of the Bin Ladens is incredible. It encompasses those of the notorious terrorist Osama Bin Laden, but it goes way beyond that. Coll tells the reader of the Americanized half-brothers and half-sisters of Osama and of a family that incarnated globalization in the 20th century.
Overall, I got a completely different perspective on the rise of Islamism and Islamist terrorism reading this book.
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…
I am a historian of the Cold War and early post-Cold War period, focusing on Soviet/ Russian foreign policy in Afghanistan and in the Middle East in the 1970s and the 1980s. These are exciting topics on which an increasing number of new documents are released each year. I have a research project and lecture about these issues at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. But academia is my second career. Before my Ph.D., I worked as an aid worker, including for two years in the Middle East. I was in the region during the height of the Syrian crisis, notably running humanitarian multi-sector needs assessments.
I bought Jeremy Bowen’s book by chance as I searched for books about the Middle East. I wanted something different from the traditional (and sometimes a bit difficult to read) academic nonfiction book. This book appealed to me because it was written in a journalistic style and because it was as much a book about recent history as one about Bowen’s own travels and encounters in the Middle East. Well, I was not disappointed.
I really enjoyed reading Bowen’s recollections of his time in the Middle East and critical reflections on great powers’ involvement there. That is a book I felt gave a good sense of how the West has mismanaged its policies in the region during the past fifty years.
A Spectator Book of the Year A New Statesman Book of the Year 'An illuminating and riveting read' - Jonathan Dimbleby
Jeremy Bowen, the International Editor of the BBC, has been covering the Middle East since 1989 and is uniquely placed to explain its complex past and its troubled present.
In The Making of the Modern Middle East - in part based on his acclaimed podcast, 'Our Man in the Middle East' - Bowen takes us on a journey across the Middle East and through its history. He meets ordinary men and women on the front line, their leaders, whether…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I am a historian of the Cold War and early post-Cold War period, focusing on Soviet/ Russian foreign policy in Afghanistan and in the Middle East in the 1970s and the 1980s. These are exciting topics on which an increasing number of new documents are released each year. I have a research project and lecture about these issues at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. But academia is my second career. Before my Ph.D., I worked as an aid worker, including for two years in the Middle East. I was in the region during the height of the Syrian crisis, notably running humanitarian multi-sector needs assessments.
I think that this is the best book about the politics of the Soviet-Afghan War. Artemy Kalinovsky writes in a vivid style and shows the intricate behind-the-scenes discussions between Soviets and Americans that led to the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in the late 1980s.
Many historical books are a dull read, but this book is not. I really like how Kalinovsky helps the reader feel as if they are at the center of the story.
The conflict in Afghanistan looms large in the collective consciousness of Americans. What has the United States achieved, and how will it withdraw without sacrificing those gains? The Soviet Union confronted these same questions in the 1980s, and Artemy Kalinovsky's history of the USSR's nine-year struggle to extricate itself from Afghanistan and bring its troops home provides a sobering perspective on exit options in the region.
What makes Kalinovsky's intense account both timely and important is its focus not on motives for initiating the conflict but on the factors that prevented the Soviet leadership from ending a demoralizing war. Why…
As a religious person, I’ve always believed religion is a force for good while being constantly reminded of the horrors it causes. This became a real-world concern with the 9/11 attacks (which happened my second week in college) and the faith-tinged US response. I spent ten years in Washington, DC working at the intersection of faith and counterterrorism, hopeful religion could solve our problems but worried it will only make things worse. I’ve continued that work as a Professor at the University of Vermont. This book reflects that tension and my desire to resolve it.
This book focuses on Iran, but like the Niebuhr book has broader applications.
Tabaar is an expert on Iranian politics who conducted incredibly in-depth research on Islamic politics in the country before and after its revolution in 1979. He pushes back on the simplistic idea that religious ideas drove politics in Iran; instead, a “politics of Islam” dominated,” in which actors drew on Islamic symbols and practices to advance their political goals.
Tabaar’s book gives a compelling example of the way religion can both drive politics and be caught up in political actors’ strategic calculations, leading to unexpected effects. It provided a foundation for my book’s argument that religion is both an influence on and tool of foreign policy that rarely works out the way it was intended.
Since the 1979 revolution, scholars and policy makers alike have tended to see Iranian political actors as religiously driven-dedicated to overturning the international order in line with a theologically prescribed outlook. In Religious Statecraft, Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar argues that such views have the link between religious ideology and political order backwards. This provocative book examines the politics of Islam rather than political Islam-demonstrating that religious narratives can change rapidly, frequently, and dramatically in accordance with elites' threat perceptions. Tabaar traces half a century of shifting Islamist doctrines against the backdrop of Iran's factional and international politics. He argues that the…
My interest in politics and conflict has always come from the margins. I have developed an interest in the periphery, minorities, liberation movements, other actors outside the center, official governance institutions, and national political elites. My work has mainly concentrated on how such actors have sought to influence politics at the national and international level and how questions of identity, perceptions of self and other, and sense of belonging come into play. Geographically, my interest has lied primarily in the Middle East, broadly defined, particularly Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Kurdistan. In recent years, however, I have also developed an interest in East Africa, especially Sudan and South Sudan.
Researchers rarely have the opportunity to gain an insight into the inner workings of authoritarian regimes. Opening the Ba‘th Party archives to researchers has been one of these rare opportunities and has resulted in an outburst of fascinating works. Most of these studies, however, have been carried out by historians. Therefore, Blaydes’s research stands out, as it sets an example of how political scientists can benefit from archival sources and historical case studies as labs to challenge conventions in the field, in this case, about the origins of authoritarianism.
Blaydes provides a detailed and nuanced account of Ba‘thist Iraq, from the Kurdish North to the predominantly Shi‘i South, combining chronological and thematic analysis to highlight every aspect of the Ba‘thist state’s repression of the Iraqi population. Blaydes’s findings feed into broader theoretical conclusions about how and why people choose to collaborate with or challenge a dictatorship.
A new account of modern Iraqi politics that overturns the conventional wisdom about its sectarian divisions
How did Iraq become one of the most repressive dictatorships of the late twentieth century? The conventional wisdom about Iraq's modern political history is that the country was doomed by its diverse social fabric. But in State of Repression, Lisa Blaydes challenges this belief by showing that the country's breakdown was far from inevitable. At the same time, she offers a new way of understanding the behavior of other authoritarian regimes and their populations.
Drawing on archival material captured from the headquarters of Saddam…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I served in Iraq as Governorate Co-ordinator of Kirkuk for the Coalition Provisional Authority, 2003-2004; and as advisor to the Commanding General of US Forces in Iraq from 2007-2010. I retain a deep love of the country and am a regular visitor. I teach about the Middle East and Global Affairs at Yale University.
Kanan is an Iraqi exile who was very supportive of the US invasion of Iraq. In The Rope, he provides a fictional account of what happened in the country, placing responsibility for the rise of sectarianism and the descent into civil war at the feet of Iraqi Shia leaders. It’s a brave and honest book.
From the best-selling author of Republic of Fear, here is a gritty and unflinching novel about Iraqi failure in the wake of the 2003 American invasion, as seen through the eyes of a Shi‘ite militiaman whose participation in the execution of Saddam Hussein changes his life in ways he could never have anticipated.
When the nameless narrator stumbles upon a corpse on April 10, 2003, the day of the fall of Saddam Hussein, he finds himself swept up in the tumultuous politics of the American occupation and is taken on a journey that concludes with the discovery of what happened…
I am a professor of politics and international relations with a focus on Iran. My passion for the country started while studying Persian or Farsi with an exceptional professor in graduate school. During that time, I had the privilege of traveling to Iran three times to study the language and conduct research on rural politics. This period coincided with the Green Movement uprising, a pivotal moment in the country. Since then, I have been enthralled by Iranian history, politics, and culture. Their richness and complexity make it a subject that can be studied and appreciated for a lifetime.
Straddling the boundaries between academic history and historical non-fiction, this book is difficult, if not impossible, to put down and draws the reader into the rich and multifaceted world of Iran’s history, politics, culture, and religion. The book is narrated through the life and lens of an ayatollah who is caught between tradition and modernity, religiosity and secularism, and east and west, much like Iran itself. Seamlessly weaving the past and present, the book reveals the inherent complexities and contradictions of Iranian identity that have been superimposed on a state and society torn between notions and aspirations of divine and popular sovereignty.
Drawn from the first-hand accounts of eyewitnesses, Roy Mottahedeh's account of Islam and politics in revolutionary Iran is widely regarded as one the best records ofd that turbulent time ever written. The true story of a young mullah, hi life in the sacred shrine city of Qom, and the dramatic events of the 1979 Revolution, this account paints a vivid picture of contemporary Iran, while providing a panoramic survey of Muslim, Shi'ite and Persian culture from the middle ages to the present day. From the ancient time of Zoroaster to the world of Khomeini, this saga interweaves biography with history,…
I am the Director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University. My interest lies in modern history and evolution of states and societies in the Middle East: Iranian- Arab relations, oil and politics, and Sunni- Shi’i dynamics. It is a particularly important period in time for the Middle East as there is a changing paradigm of geopolitics in the region. During the course of the last decade, we have seen repercussions of the Arab Spring, withdrawal of US troops from the region and signing of the Abraham Accords. I follow these developments and frequently provide expert commentary and analysis in various forums.
The Enemy Withindiscusses the factors that instigated violence in June 2012 between the Buddhists and Muslims within Myanmar. This violence had disastrous results for several ethnic communities, especially the Rohingya.
The book focuses on two main ideas: the development and maintenance of ethnic identity over a long period of time, that turns minorities into the ‘other’ in their own country, and Myanmar government’s practice of political violence that eliminates religious and racial diversity.
Wade describes how the discussion over an ethnic minority’s identity was manipulated by Buddhist extremists as well as the military junta. He also illustrates that by constantly threatening the identity and beliefs of groups of people in the country, the government was able to undertake a program of exclusion and persecution.
In 2017, Myanmar's military launched a campaign of violence against the Rohingya minority that UN experts later said amounted to a genocide. More than seven hundred thousand civilians fled to Bangladesh in what became the most concentrated flight of refugees since the Rwanda genocide of 1994. The warning signs of impending catastrophe that had built over years were downplayed by Western backers of the political transition, and only when the exodus began did the world finally come to acknowledge a catastrophe that had been long in the making.
In this updated edition of the book that foreshadowed a genocide, Francis…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
Most of my career has been spent as a scholar of interfaith relations, understanding how people understand each other and develop dialogue. This laid the background for my book, while I also understood the need for looking at not just how people get on during the good times, but what happens when religious communities and non-religious groups end up in antagonism or even violent confrontation.
As a Professor of Interreligious Studies, Religious Hatred is one of fifteen books I have written in a career that has seen me teach at universities on three continents, as well as being an advisor and trainer to governments, media, NGOs, and various faith-based organisations and communities.
One problem with recommending books on this topic is that there are so many good ones, so what makes this one stand out? Beydoun talks directly from his own personal experience as a human being and his expertise in law.
While he only addresses the USA, much that Khaled says has far wider resonances, which make it worthwhile reading for everyone. What really stays in my mind from this book is Beydoun’s legal scholarship.
Sometimes discussion about prejudice is quite abstract and about an ethos of prejudice. What he details are point-by-point legal cases where judges make decisions based on perceptions of skin colour, ethnicity, and presumed religion to decide what rights people have, what citizenship they can have, and where they can live.
On Forbes list of "10 Books To Help You Foster A More Diverse And Inclusive Workplace" How law, policy, and official state rhetoric have fueled the resurgence of Islamophobia-with a call to action on how to combat it.
"I remember the four words that repeatedly scrolled across my mind after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. 'Please don't be Muslims, please don't be Muslims.' The four words I whispered to myself on 9/11 reverberated through the mind of every Muslim American that day and every day after.... Our fear, and the collective breath…
