Ahmadinejad, Rouhani and Iran now
Michael Axworthy
in Iran: What Everyone Needs to Know®
How did Ahmadinejad become president in 2005?
Among the presidents Iran has had since the revolution, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the joker in the pack. He was not part of the charmed ...
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Ancient and Islamic Iran
Michael Axworthy
in Iran: What Everyone Needs to Know®
What do we know about the Indo-European peoples and the origins of Iran?
What we know begins with the fact that the Persian language (known to Iranians in their own tongue as ...
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The Arab Uprisings and their Fallout
James L. Gelvin
in The New Middle East: What Everyone Needs to Know®
How did the Arab uprisings begin?
On December 17, 2010, a Tunisian street vendor, Muhammad Bouazizi, set himself on fire in front of the local government building in Sidi Bouzid, ...
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The Arab-Israeli Wars
Dov Waxman
in The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know®
How many Arab-Israeli wars have there been, and how many people have been killed?
It is not as easy as you might think to count the number of Arab-Israeli wars or tally the number ...
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The Basics
Dov Waxman
in The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know®
Who is the conflict between?
To understand any conflict, the first and most basic task is to accurately identify the parties involved. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian ...
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Before the Deluge: The Middle East, 1945–2011
James L. Gelvin
in The New Middle East: What Everyone Needs to Know®
What is the Middle East?
The Middle East
“Middle East” is one of several terms that refer to the territory of southwest Asia and North Africa. Other terms for the same ...
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The Beginning: Tunisia and Egypt
James L. Gelvin
in The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know® (2 ed.)
What characteristics do Tunisia and Egypt hold in common?
At first glance, it would seem that no two countries in the Arab world differ from each other more than Tunisia and Egypt. ...
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The Beginning of the Conflict
Dov Waxman
in The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know®
When did the conflict begin?
By far the most enduring popular myth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that it is an age-old conflict. All too often, one hears the claim that ...
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Building a New Regime: Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak
Bruce K. Rutherford and Jeannie L. Sowers
in Modern Egypt: What Everyone Needs to Know®
What Caused the Military Coup in 1952? What Were Its Goals?
The political order created after Egypt’s independence in 1922 was a disappointment to many Egyptians. The struggle for ...
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Conclusion
Andrew Finkel
in Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know®
What sort of future does Turkey face?
Since this is the last question, I allow myself the luxury of answering it obliquely, or at the very least with an anecdote or two. In 2007 I ...
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Conclusion: The Long Path to Peace
Dov Waxman
in The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know®
Is a two-state solution still possible?
A two-state solution to the century-old conflict over Palestine has been recommended for more than eight decades. The British government was ...
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“Coup-Proofed”: Bahrain and Syria
James L. Gelvin
in The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know® (2 ed.)
What do Bahrain and Syria have in common?
Like Tunisia and Egypt, Bahrain and Syria make an unlikely pair. Bahrain is an archipelago of thirty-two islands in the Persian Gulf. The ...
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Economic Development and Human Welfare
Bruce K. Rutherford and Jeannie L. Sowers
in Modern Egypt: What Everyone Needs to Know®
What Is Egypt’s Level of Human Development?
For many decades, national development was measured in terms of simplistic economic indicators such as gross national product (GNP). ...
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Economy
Andrew Finkel
in Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know®
What is Turkey’s economic potential . . . ?
Turkey comfortably takes its place at G20 summits. It is, according to most reckonings of nominal GDP, the seventeenth largest economy ...
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Environmental Issues, Natural Resources, and Quality of Life
Bruce K. Rutherford and Jeannie L. Sowers
in Modern Egypt: What Everyone Needs to Know®
How Do Environmental Problems Affect Egypt?
Egypt faces grave environmental problems that negatively impact the health and well-being of its citizens and threaten the country’s ...
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Foreign Affairs
Bruce K. Rutherford and Jeannie L. Sowers
in Modern Egypt: What Everyone Needs to Know®
How Does Geography Shape Egypt’s Foreign Policy?
Egyptians consider their country the natural leader of the region in part due to its location at the crossroads of Africa, Europe, ...
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Historical Background
Andrew Finkel
in Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know®
Who were the Ottomans and what is their relation to modern Turkey?
Today’s Turkish Republic was previously part of an empire ruled over by the Ottoman dynasty. The word “Ottoman” ...
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Human Security in the New Middle East
James L. Gelvin
in The New Middle East: What Everyone Needs to Know®
What is “human security”?
When the term “security” is used among policy makers and political scientists, more often than not it refers to the security of states, not the security ...
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Introduction
Andrew Finkel
in Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know®
Why this book?
The method of this book is to investigate a complex subject succinctly by posing a series of questions that beg answers that beget more questions. It is hard to ...
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Introduction
Michael Axworthy
in Iran: What Everyone Needs to Know®
For many years, Iran has been closed off from much of the rest of the outside world, but now the country is opening up. The conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in ...
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