L. Carl Brown

With a fine objectivity, Reynolds draws on both Ottoman and Russian sources and reveals how the actions and attitudes of the two declining empires shaped the post-imperial paths of Turkey and the Soviet Union.

Cook concludes that although Egypt’s future remains very much in doubt, the United States should “take a hands-off approach as Egyptians build a new political system on their own terms.”

The experts collected here appraise U.S. policy toward the vast array of countries from the Maghreb to Afghanistan, covering essentially the first two years of Barack Obama’s presidency and comparing his performance and policies with those of his predecessor.

Although different in style and subject, these two books reach a similar conclusion: only a two-state solution can secure an Israel that is both Jewish and democratic.

This worthy addition to that distinctive genre of books written by political leaders still in office is part autobiography, part political history.

This book, one in a U.S. Institute of Peace series on cross-cultural negotiations, sets out how Pakistan’s distinctive history, geography, and political culture have shaped its approach to negotiating with the United States.

This dense little book, a fact-filled account of Israel and the Palestinians since the June 1967 war, treats not peace-process politics but actual developments on the ground.

This is the work of a historian not so much pleading a case as bringing to life the mindsets and interactions of Arabs and Americans while highlighting the less well-known Arab side of the story.

Published a short time before thousands of Egyptians began pouring into Cairo's Tahrir Square, Egypt on the Brink is a timely account of Egypt near the end of the 30-year Mubarak era.

Although oil has always figured prominently in Saudi studies, this book is surely the first to trace Saudi policies concerning oil and water since the 1920s.

This is the story of Germany's plans to bring the Ottomans into World War I and then to play the jihad card against the Allies, which held most of the Muslim world in colonial thrall.