NO OTHER COUNTRY SO DOMINATES THE HEADLINES: Iran is portrayed as a nuclear threat, a terrorist nation, a charter member of the Axis of Evil bent on the destruction of Israel. But behind those headlines—and the fierce rhetoric of Iran’s most hard-line leaders—is a proud nation with a 2,500-year history of Persian poetry, art, and passion. Based on more than thirty extended reporting trips to Iran, including the turbulent aftermath of the disputed June 2009 election, Scott Peterson’s portrait is the definitive guide to this enigmatic nation, from the roots of its incendiary internal struggles to the rise and slide of Iran’s earthshaking 1979 Islamic Revolution. This prize-winning American journalist with unparalleled experience in Iran takes us there, inside a country where an educated and young population is restlessly eager to take its place in the world; where martyrs of the "sacred" Iran-Iraq War are still mourned with tears of devotion; where the cultural and religious forces of light and darkness are locked in battle. Peterson brings stunningly alive the diversity within Iran—from the hard-liners who shout "Death to America" to the majority who comprise the most pro-American population in the Middle East. Let the Swords Encircle Me gives voice to Iranians themselves—the clerics and the reformers, the filmmakers and the journalists, the True Believers and their Westernized and profane brethren—to understand the complexities of Iran today. Through dedicated and in-depth reporting, Peterson shows how every word, image, and sensibility in Iran is often deliciously unexpected and counterintuitive. Ideology matters. So does "resistance." And azadi: freedom. Peterson deftly holds a mirror up to both sides of the U.S.-Iran conflict. Americans and Iranians, he writes, share a belief in their own exceptionalism and "manifest destiny" (which for Iran includes its nuclear ambitions) and frequent need of an "enemy" in political discourse. The same elements that have locked the United States and Iran in the most vicious of struggles—stretching back to the 1953 CIA coup in Tehran and the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage saga—are the same ones that could one day make Iran and the United States the most "natural" allies in the region. In this critical and personal account, Peterson illumines the latest episodes of Iran’s century-old quest for democracy and freedom. He explains how the Islamic Revolution—launched as a beacon of justice and resistance for Iranians and all the world’s Muslims—has not lived up to its ambitious promise. He shows how the violence of 2009 damaged the regime’s legitimacy and marks the start of an irreversible decline. Let the Swords Encircle Me takes us into the minds and hearts of Iranians today, and will be a crucial guide as Americans and Iranians attempt to overcome their bitter estrangement.

NO OTHER COUNTRY SO DOMINATES THE HEADLINES: Iran is portrayed as a nuclear threat, a terrorist nation, a charter member of the Axis of Evil bent on the destruction of Israel. But behind those headlines—and the fierce rhetoric of Iran’s most hard-line leaders—is a proud nation with a 2,500-year history of Persian poetry, art, and passion. Based on more than thirty extended reporting trips to Iran, including the turbulent aftermath of the disputed June 2009 election, Scott Peterson’s portrait is the definitive guide to this enigmatic nation, from the roots of its incendiary internal struggles to the rise and slide of Iran’s earthshaking 1979 Islamic Revolution. This prize-winning American journalist with unparalleled experience in Iran takes us there, inside a country where an educated and young population is restlessly eager to take its place in the world; where martyrs of the "sacred" Iran-Iraq War are still mourned with tears of devotion; where the cultural and religious forces of light and darkness are locked in battle. Peterson brings stunningly alive the diversity within Iran—from the hard-liners who shout "Death to America" to the majority who comprise the most pro-American population in the Middle East. Let the Swords Encircle Me gives voice to Iranians themselves—the clerics and the reformers, the filmmakers and the journalists, the True Believers and their Westernized and profane brethren—to understand the complexities of Iran today. Through dedicated and in-depth reporting, Peterson shows how every word, image, and sensibility in Iran is often deliciously unexpected and counterintuitive. Ideology matters. So does "resistance." And azadi: freedom. Peterson deftly holds a mirror up to both sides of the U.S.-Iran conflict. Americans and Iranians, he writes, share a belief in their own exceptionalism and "manifest destiny" (which for Iran includes its nuclear ambitions) and frequent need of an "enemy" in political discourse. The same elements that have locked the United States and Iran in the most vicious of struggles—stretching back to the 1953 CIA coup in Tehran and the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage saga—are the same ones that could one day make Iran and the United States the most "natural" allies in the region. In this critical and personal account, Peterson illumines the latest episodes of Iran’s century-old quest for democracy and freedom. He explains how the Islamic Revolution—launched as a beacon of justice and resistance for Iranians and all the world’s Muslims—has not lived up to its ambitious promise. He shows how the violence of 2009 damaged the regime’s legitimacy and marks the start of an irreversible decline. Let the Swords Encircle Me takes us into the minds and hearts of Iranians today, and will be a crucial guide as Americans and Iranians attempt to overcome their bitter estrangement.

American journalist Scott Peterson describes the violent events that have torn apart Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda during the 1990s, including the involvement of the U.S.

John Carter is back and in the Barsoonian city of Zodanga, where he discovers the Assasins guild is alive and well!

By 2013, Iranians were suffocating, as though the streets had become narrower, the buildings taller, the dirty air thicker. In electing Hassan Rouhani, they chose a new, reformist leader, burying the days when a Holocaust-denying president had pushed Iran to the edge of economic collapse and conflict. But the nation hasn’t quite broken free. Iranians are trying to move on, yet the Islamic Republic remains a prisoner of the past, plagued by US sanctions, a broken economy and the threat of war. After 2016, Donald Trump’s presidency derailed the future of millions of people. How have Iranians met these challenges? What future do they imagine now? Has Iran missed its best chance for real change? Crooked Alleys explores Iran during some of its darkest days, but also its most hopeful.

Daughter of the Forest is a testimony to an incredible author's talent, a first novel and the beginning of a trilogy like no other: a mixture of history and fantasy, myth and magic, legend and love. Lord Colum of Sevenwaters is blessed with six sons: Liam, a natural leader; Diarmid, with his passion for adventure; twins Cormack and Conor, each with a different calling; rebellious Finbar, grown old before his time by his gift of the Sight; and the young, compassionate Padriac. But it is Sorcha, the seventh child and only daughter, who alone is destined to defend her family and protect her land from the Britons and the clan known as Northwoods. For her father has been bewitched, and her brothers bound by a spell that only Sorcha can lift. To reclaim the lives of her brothers, Sorcha leaves the only safe place she has ever known, and embarks on a journey filled with pain, loss, and terror. When she is kidnapped by enemy forces and taken to a foreign land, it seems that there will be no way for her to break the spell that condemns all that she loves. But magic knows no boundaries, and Sorcha will have to choose between the life she has always known and a love that comes only once. Juliet Marillier is a rare talent, a writer who can imbue her characters and her story with such warmth, such heart, that no reader can come away from her work untouched. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Through detailed exploration of events in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Syria and Yemen, Sean Burns here breaks down the concept of professionalism within the armed forces into its component parts and demonstrates how variation in military structures determines their behaviour. In so doing, and by emphasising historical context and drawing on a wide range of political science theory, Burns sheds fresh light onto the ways in which military structure affects the potential for democratic transition or the course of civil war. With this book he presented a wide-ranging study of the Middle East which provides key tools to understanding the opportunities for democratisation, both during the Arab Spring and beyond, and which is therefore essential reading for anyone working on the Middle East, popular uprisings and the politics of repression.