What are you reading?

[Gavur]

Re: What are you reading?

The Great War For Civilization; The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gre...he_Middle_East

Great book (literally) I'm through 2/3 rds of it.

[Gavur]

Re: What are you reading?

Armenian Golgotha by krikoris Balakian (2009) V1-2 Englism transalation.

[jgk3]

Re: What are you reading?

Armenia, Subartu and Sumer - Martiros Kavoukjian
A Treasury of Traditional Wisdom - Whitall N. Perry
Indo-European Language and Society - Emile Benveniste

[hipeter924]

Re: What are you reading?

The Great War For Civilization; The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk.

The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East is a book published in 2005 by the award-winning British journalist Robert Fisk. The book is a compilation of many of the articles Fisk wrote when he was serving as a correspondent in the Middle East for The Times and The Independent. The book revolves around several key themes regarding the history of the modern Middle East: the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf War as well as the 2003 Iraq War as well as other less loosely connected topics to the region including the Armenian Genocide and the Algerian Civil War. The Great War for Civilisation is the second book Fisk has written about the Middle East with the first one, Pity the Nation, (Nation Books, 2002) being about the Lebanon Civil War.

Fisk's book details his travels to many of the hotspots of the Middle East, such as Iraq and Iran during the Iran–Iraq War, and his numerous interviews with both the country's leaders and its people. Along with these interviews, Fisk's also provides much of the historical context to these conflicts.

In the book, Fisk criticizes the United States and Great Britain for what he perceives as their hypocritical and biased foreign policy towards the Middle East, especially in regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the 2003 Iraq War. He feels leaders of both countries deliberately misled the world into invading Iraq in 2003.[1]

The name of the book comes from a campaign medal Fisk's father was awarded for his services in the First World War.[2]

Chapters:

1. "One of Our Brothers Had a Dream..." is about Fisk's first interview in 1996 with the leader of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan. The title of the chapter is derived from bin Laden who explains that one of his fighters had a dream of Fisk, wearing a robe and with a beard, and who was approaching them on a horse, signifying that he was, according to bin Laden, a "true Muslim".[3] Fisk immediately understood the context of the dream as an attempt by bin Laden to recruit him into his organization.[4]

2. They Shoot Russians is on the 1980 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan where Fisk chronicles much of the problems the Soviet Union faced in dealing with the Afghan mujahideen when they entered the country as well as the invasion's galvanizing effect in recruiting thousands of foreign Muslim fighters to the country and the resurgence of radical Islam in the country.

3. The Choirs of Kandahar is essentially a continuation of Chapter 2.

4. The Carpet-Weavers begins with the United States' and Great Britain's successful overthrow of the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh. From there, it moves on to the events leading up to and following the Iranian Revolution of 1979 which deposed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

5-8. The Path to War and the subsequent chapters The Whirlwind War, War Against War and the Fast Train to Paradise and Drinking the Poisoned Chalice deal with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the battles of the Iran-Iraq of the 1980s including the Tanker War, Iran's use of human wave tactics and Saddam's use of chemical weapons against Iran, the United States' and West's roles in the conflict and the conclusion of the war.

9. Sentenced to Suffer Death is Fisk's account of his father, Bill Fisk, during his service in the British military in World War I and his difficult decision to take part as a member of a firing squad ordered to execute another soldier.

10. The First Holocaust is devoted to the topic of the Armenian Genocide. Its title is derived from the fact that the Genocide, organized by the government of the Ottoman Empire, took place in 1915, several decades before the xxxish Holocaust. In it, Fisk provides the historical context of the Armenian Genocide and includes his numerous interviews with survivors of the Genocide who are then living in Lebanon and Armenia. Fisk also heavily criticizes the denialist stance of Turkey, the successor to the Ottoman Empire, as well as Israel and Great Britain for failing to recognize the massacres and deportations as genocide.

11-13. Fifty Thousand Miles from Palestine and the subsequent chapters The Last Colonial War and The Girl and the Child and Love are devoted to the Arab-Israeli conflict from the 1980s onward. The chapters deal with the deaths of civilians on both sides, suicide bombings and the Israeli government's military approach to the Palestinian issue. Much of these chapters also detail with media coverage of the conflict and the terms used by them to describe both sides, most notably the word "terrorist".

14. "Anything to Wipe Out a Devil... briefly focuses on the Algerian War and the use of torture and terrorism by both the French military and Algerian fighters of the 1954-1962 war. After the French pullout and Algerian independence, the book details the internal power struggles among the secular and Islamist factions and continues on with this theme in to the Algerian Civil War which began in 1991.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_War_for_Civilisation:_The_Conquest_of_the_Middle_East

[One-Way]

Re: What are you reading?

Labor of Love

I just finished reading M. Night Shyamalan's unproduced screenplay, Labor of Love. This screenplay was Shyamalan's third, which was written before The Sixth Sense. The screenplay was sold to Fox for $750,000 but was taken away from him, which caused Shyamalan to move onto other projects. I had come across this script years ago and hadn't ever read it through.

Labor of Love is much different from Shyamalan's familiar work. Maurice and Ellen Parker have been married for over seventeen years. When Ellen Parker questions her husband's love, Maurice abrubtly states, "Would I walk across the United States for you? Yes." Usually, this line wouldn't mean anything in a conversation; however, this becomes the plot of our story.

Ellen Parker is in a fatal car accident in the opening on the script. We flashback two weeks earlier, and witness her death firsthand as Maurice finds out in his home. Feeling a sense of guilt, Maurice shuts the doors of his private business and heads on a three thousand mile walk from Philedelphia, Pennyslvania to Pacifica, California. The story is told through several effective flashbacks; we see Maurice and Ellen meeting each other, getting married, and even intimate moments in their home.

Maurice takes his journey seriously and desperately tries to make his away across the country. Surprisingly, Shyamalan keeps the pace of the story quite interesting and effectively tells a heartfelt story. The screenplay consists of moments of true sadness, which work effectively with its humor. In the final scenes, we're sitting at the edge of our seats, praying Maurice reaches his finish line. Labor of Love is a personal subject, one that I would have loved to see Shyamalan tackle despite its lacking subject matter.

[yerazhishda]

Re: What are you reading?

«Որդի Մարդոյ»
Անել
Երուսաղեմ, 1975 (368 pgs)

[Stanci]

Re: What are you reading?

"Why Mexican's don't drink Molson" by Mandel-Campbell

[Federate]

Re: What are you reading?

Watchmen

I bought the novel today and I'm not sure if I'll have time to read it this month. Hopefully I will finish by the release of the film, if not, I'll finish mid-March. This marks the first comic I have ever read. Dyslexia, here I come.

Read it a few weeks ago, it's great. Rorschach is such a cool protagonist! Get ready for a bunch of huge consecutive twists around the end.

[Anush]

Re: What are you reading?

Nicholas and Alexandra
for the zillionith time...

[One-Way]

Re: What are you reading?

Watchmen

I bought the novel today and I'm not sure if I'll have time to read it this month. Hopefully I will finish by the release of the film, if not, I'll finish mid-March. This marks the first comic I have ever read. Dyslexia, here I come.