Constitutional Politics in the Middle East: With Special Reference to Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan

by Said Amir Arjomand

From the publisher:
This book is the first comparative and interdisciplinary study of constitutional politics and constitution-making in the Middle East. The historical background and setting are fully explored in two substantial essays by Linda Darling and Saïd Amir Arjoman

Saïd Amir Arjomand is Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the founder and President (1996-2002, 2005-08) of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies.

From LWBN
This book's exact release date is unknown but falls within this month.

The Terrorist Threat from Thailand: Jihad or Quest for Justice?

by Rohan Gunaratna and Arabinda Acharya

From the publisher:
Since January 2004, the violence in the southern provinces of Thailand has claimed more than 2,000 lives. The violence has also adversely affected the local economy and quality of life in the southern provinces. The atmosphere of fear and intimidation is dividing the society on religious lines, with growing apprehension that what began as a separatist nationalist conflict might well end up as a clash between Buddhism and Islam. There is also a strong potential for the Muslim insurgency in southern Thailand to get sucked into the global jihad.

Rohan Gunaratna and Arabinda Acharya provide a short history of the conflict, which dates at least to the early 1900s, as well as an analysis of factors contributing to the most recent escalation of violence, which began in 2001 but assumed an alarming proportion in 2004. The authors shed light on the causes of the Southern Thai conflict and examine its potential to spread from Thailand to neighboring countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Even more alarming, the authors find that there is the possibility that this predominantly localized conflict could escalate into an international Islamic jihad. In addition to analyzing the insurgents capabilities and opportunities, the authors provide a critique of government policies and make astute suggestions for resolving the conflict.

Rohan Gunaratna is head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is also senior fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacys Jebsen Centre for Counter-Terrorism Studies, Boston. Gunaratna is the author of twelve books, including Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror, an international bestseller. His latest book is Countering Terrorism: Can We Meet the Threat of Global Violence?, coauthored with Michael Chandler, chairman of the UN Taliban and al Qaeda monitoring group. He is Visiting Professor at Sydney University's Center for International and Security Studies. Arabinda Acharya is manager of strategic projects at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His area of research includes conflict, human security, and political violence and terrorism, with an emphasis on terrorist ideology and terrorist financing.

Enemy Combatants and U. S. Courts

by Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel (Editors)

From the publisher:
The Enemy Combatants Papers presents the five major enemy combatant cases of the post-9/11 era. Presented in narrative form, these original documents tell the story that clarifies the questions at the heart of the American detention of alleged combatants in the war on terror. These documents discuss the right to counsel, the right to a trial, the right for the accused to see the evidence against him, and the intersection between domestic and international law. The book highlights the tension between the needs of national security and the liberties allotted to alleged enemies of the state by highlighting the basic question of what the U.S. Constitution guarantees and to whom. In these documents, the reader can follow the evolving arguments about presidential powers in time of war, habeas corpus, the Geneva Conventions, balance of powers, and matters of detention and prisoner treatment. Complemented with a comprehensive timeline and appendices that include the relevant cases from the Civil War, World War II, and the Korean War and the premises for setting up military commissions and Combatant Status Review Tribunals, this book is meant for those who seek to understand the issues - legal, political, and military - that have dominated the search for balance between justice and security in the war on terror.

Karen J. Greenberg is the Executive Director of the Center on Law and Security. She is the editor of the NYU Review of Law and Security, co-editor of The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib, and editor of the books Al Qaeda Now and The Torture Debate in America. She is a frequent writer and commentator on terrorism, international law, the war on terror, and detainee issues. Her work has been featured in the L.A. Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Nation, the American Prospect, and on major media outlets. Joshua Dratel is a practising attorney in New York City. He is past President of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Along with Major Dan Mori, Dratel assisted in the defense of Australian detainee David Hicks. He also defended al Qaeda member Wadih el Hage after the bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. Dratel has written articles on defending terrorism cases, including Ethical Issues in Defending a Terrorism Case: How Secrecy and Security Impair the Defense of a Terrorism Case and Ethical Issues in Defending a Terrorism Case: Stuck in the Middle. He is co-editor of The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib. He received his B.A. from Columbia College and his law degree from Harvard Law School.

A History of Modern Iran

by Ervand Abrahamian

From the publisher:
In a reappraisal of Iran's modern history, Ervand Abrahamian traces its traumatic journey across the twentieth century, through the discovery of oil, imperial interventions, the rule of the Pahlavis and, in 1979, revolution and the birth of the Islamic Republic. In the intervening years, the country has experienced a bitter war with Iraq, the transformation of society under the clergy and, more recently, the expansion of the state and the struggle for power between the old elites, the intelligentsia and the commercial middle class. The author is a compassionate expositor. While he adroitly negotiates the twists and turns of the country's regional and international politics, at the heart of his book are the people of Iran. It is to them and their resilience that this book is dedicated, as Iran emerges at the beginning of the twenty-first century as one of the most powerful states in the Middle East.

"Ervand Abrahamian has done for Iran what de Tocqueville did for France, showing how the revolution continued the work of the ancien regime, through the ever increasing power of the state." - Edward Mortimer, Senior Vice-President, Salzburg Global Seminar, and author of Faith and Power: the Politics of Islam

"Ervand Abrahamian's authoritative overview of twentieth-century Iran fills a large gap in the literature of Iranian studies. His predilection for social analysis and class studies provides an original prism through which the reader gains fresh insights into the drama of the drawn-out conflict between traditional vested interests and growing state power. Drawing on a lifetime of research and writing, Abrahamian has produced a book that successfully combines erudition and original scholarship with accessibility. Specialists and general readers alike will benefit greatly from its reading." - Andrew Whitley, Director, UNRWA Representative Office

"Ervand Abrahamian's A History of Modern Iran is a splendidly well-researched and well-written, interpretive overview of 19th and 20th century Iran. The main developments under the Qajar and Pahlavi dynasties and under the Islamic Republic, the important role of Shiism in Iran's history, the origins of modernization, the quest for democratic reform at various junctures, popular participation in the revolutions of 1906 and 1978--Abrahamian covers all this and much, much more. This book, by a first rate historian, is a must read for students and those interested in modern Iranian history." - Haleh Esfandiari, Director, Middle East Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Islamic Terror: Conscious and Unconscious Motives

by Avner Falk

From the publisher:
Independent scholar Falk analyzes Islamic terror from many standpoints, including religious, cultural, historical, political, social, economic and, above all, psychological. Trained as a clinical psychologist, Falk's writings specialize in psychohistory and political psychology. Here, he examines topics including infantile experience and adult terrorism, the meaning of terror, terrorists and their mothers, narcissistic rage and Islamic terror, and whether terrorists are "normal" people, as some scholars claim. He also describes the infantile development of terrorist pathology, non-psychoanalytic theories of terrorism, globalization's effect on terrorism, and the notion of the clash of civilizations.

Examining the emotional structure of traditional Muslim families, Falk also shows us the Muslim child's ambivalence toward his or her parents, how Muslims abuse women and children, the roots of Muslim rage, and why all of that plays into future terrorism development. Other topics addressed in this reader-friendly analysis include history's first Islamaic terrorists, and three important cases - two recent deadly terrrists, and the last a primary figure in our current "war on terror."

The central idea throughout the book is that a person's attitude toward terror and terrorism - as well as whether he or she becomes a murderous terrorist, or one who wages a global war on terror - has much to do with that person's own terrifying experiences in infancy and childhood. Such terror, usually experienced first in the earliest experience with the mother - is symbolically expressed, as Falk shows, in fairy tales and myths about terrifying withces and female monsters. Further terror may be experienced in one's relationship with the father, and also in various traumatic ways otherwise in childhood. It is these early terrors, when extreme and uncontrollable, that most often produce terrorists and wars on terror, Falk argues. Thus, this book focuses on the conscious, but also the irrational and unconscious, causes of terrorism.

AVNER FALK is an internationally-known Israeli scholar, expert in the fields of psychohistory and political psychology. He trained as a clinical psychologist at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and at Washington University in St. Louis. He practiced psychotherapy for 25 years, during which he served as Senior Clinical Psychologist at several mental health centers, before becoming a full-time independent scholar. He has authored seven earlier books, including Anti-Semitism: A History and Psychology of Hatred (Praeger, 2008), Fratricide in the Holy Land: A Psychoanalytic View of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and Napoleon Against Himself: A Psychobiography.

The United States and Iran: Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment

by Sas Fayazmanesh

From the publisher:
When and why did the United States policy of containment of Iran come about? How did it evolve? Where is it going?

Much has been said about the US policy of dual containment, particularly as it pertains to Iraq. However, there has been little in-depth analysis of this policy when it comes to Iran.

Sasan Fayazmanesh explores this often neglected subject by analyzing the history of this policy. The analysis includes the role that the Carter and Reagan Administrations played in the Iran-Iraq war, the numerous sanctions imposed on Iran by the Clinton Administration and the aggressive and confrontational policy toward Iran adopted by the George W. Bush Administration after the events of September 11, 2001.

This topical read synthesizes a range of primary sources, including firsthand reports, newspaper articles and electronic media, and presents a coherent analysis of the ebbs and flows in the US thinking on Iran and Iraq.

Terrorism in the 21st Century

by Cynthia C. Combs

From the publisher:
Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century helps readers understand what terrorism is and realistically assess the future of this phenomenon. Putting terrorism into historical perspective and approaching it as a form of political violence, this text offers tools like the latest data and numerous case studies to facilitate the critical analysis of terrorist acts and break down what, who, why, and how. Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century surveys national and international responses, evaluating their effectiveness and concluding with notes on future threats and trends.

Understanding Terriorism and Political Violence

by Dipak Gupta

From the publisher:
This ambitious book has two inter-related objectives, proposing a new theory of human behaviour and then analyzing terrorism in the light of this general theory.

It starts with a new theoretical construct regarding individual motivations. Dipak Gupta posits that in order to understand human motivation, along with self-interest, we must take into account our other primordial instinct: to belong to a group. On the basis of this expanded view of human motivations, the book provides an understanding of the lifecycle of terrorist organizations. Since the lifecycle of a group is inextricably intertwined with public policies, the author also examines the role of the authorities in promoting, maintaining, and suppressing violent dissent.

This innovative and broad-ranging new book will be essential reading for advanced students of terrorism studies and political science, and of great interest to students of social psychology and sociology.

Japanese Public Opinion and the War on Terrorism

by Robert D. Eldridge and Paul Midford (Editors)

From the publisher:
In this volume the contributors argue that the events of 9-11 and the subsequent "war on terrorism" have had big implications for Japan. These events have called into question the assumptions and limits of Japan’s war-renouncing constitution. Within hours of the 9-11 attacks Japan began making important policy innovations that suggested to many analysts a new readiness to support and participate in the use of force overseas, even to the extent of fighting hand-in-hand with US forces in conflicts far from Japanese shores. The authors consider these questions by examining an understudied variable, public opinion.

Robert Eldridge is Associate Professor at the Osaka School of International Public Policy. Paul Midford is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Politica Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

How Should the U.S. Proceed in Iraq?

by William Dudley

From the publisher:
Books in this anthology series focus a wide range of viewpoints onto a single controversial issue, providing in-depth discussions by leading advocates. Articles are printed in their entirety and footnotes and source notes are retained. These books offer the reader not only a full spectrum of dissent on the subject, but also the ability to test the validity of arguments by following up on sources used as evidence. Extensive bibliographies and annotated lists of relevant organizations to contact offer a gateway to further research. This series provides a quick grounding in the issues, a challenge to critical thinking skills, and an excellent research tool in each inexpensive volume.

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals

by Jane Mayer

From the publisher:
A dramatic and damning narrative account of how America has fought the "War on Terror"

In the days immediately following September 11th, the most powerful people in the country were panic-stricken. The radical decisions about how to combat terrorists and strengthen national security were made in a state of utter chaos and fear, but the key players, Vice President Dick Cheney and his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington, used the crisis to further a long held agenda to enhance Presidential powers to a degree never known in U.S. history, and obliterate Constitutional protections that define the very essence of the American experiment.

THE DARK SIDE is a dramatic, riveting, and definitive narrative account of how the United States made terrible decisions in the pursuit of terrorists around the world-- decisions that not only violated the Constitution to which White House officials took an oath to uphold, but also hampered the pursuit of Al Qaeda. In gripping detail, acclaimed New Yorker writer and bestselling author, Jane Mayer, relates the impact of these decisions—U.S.-held prisoners, some of them completely innocent, were subjected to treatment more reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition than the twenty-first century.

THE DARK SIDE will chronicle real, specific cases, shown in real time against the larger tableau of what was happening in Washington, looking at the intelligence gained—or not—and the price paid. In some instances, torture worked. In many more, it led to false information, sometimes with devastating results. For instance, there is the stunning admission of one of the detainees, Sheikh Ibn al-Libi, that the confession he gave under duress—which provided a key piece of evidence buttressing congressional support of going to war against Iraq--was in fact fabricated, to make the torture stop.

In all cases, whatever the short term gains, there were incalculable losses in terms of moral standing, and our country's place in the world, and its sense of itself. THE DARK SIDE chronicles one of the most disturbing chapters in American history, one that will serve as the lasting legacy of the George W. Bush presidency.

Jane Mayer is the co-author of two bestselling and critically acclaimed narrative nonfiction books, LANDSLIDE: THE UNMAKING OF THE PRESIDENT, 1984-1988, and STRANGE JUSTICE: THE SELLING OF CLARENCE THOMAS, the latter of which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Mayer was also awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in connection with THE DARK SIDE. She is currently a Washington-based staff writer for The New Yorker, specializing in political and investigative reporting. Before that, she was a senior writer and front-page editor for The Wall Street Journal, as well as the Journal's first female White House correspondent. She lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her husband, Bill, and their daughter, Kate.

Humanitarian Intervention after Kosovo: Learning from Mistakes in East Timor, Iraq and Darfur

by Aidan Hehir

From the publisher:
This title offers a critical analysis of the record of global civil society and the normative thesis since NATO's intervention in Kosovo. The book advances a new direction for the humanitarian intervention debate. This book unites theory and practice; it provides an in depth analysis of events through case studies of Iraq, Darfur and others, while other chapters build on this data to provide robust theoretical arguments. It makes an important contribution to the theoretical thinking on humanitarian intervention. It examines what makes a 'just' war at a time when a number of recent international issues have reignited the debate regarding internal intervention.

When should the international community intervene to prevent suffering within sovereign states? This book argues that since Kosovo, the normative thesis has failed to influence international politics, as evidenced by events in Iraq and Darfur. This critique rejects realism and offers a new perspective on this important issue.

The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector in Iraq

by Aidan Delgado

From the publisher:
A young man's transformation from Army Reserve volunteer to Buddhist conscientious objector and critic of the war in Iraq

In 2003 Aidan Delgado was deployed to Nasiriyah and Abu Ghraib with the U.S. Army Reserve. When his colleagues learned that he spoke some Arabic, they made use of him but also began to mistrust him. Delgado's opposition to the war mounted as he saw American arrogance and abuse of unarmed Iraqis run rampant. Concluding that war ran counter to his Buddhist principles, he sought Conscientious Objector status and was honorably discharged. Back home, he began to speak out against the injustices he had seen.

The Sutras of Abu Ghraib is Delgado's account of those days in Iraq. In chronicling the struggles of military life and the dehumanizing effects of war, he examines the attitudes that make prisoner abuse possible and explores his own developing Buddhist beliefs against a brutal backdrop. It is a tale of the cost—but also the urgent necessity—of moral courage.

Aidan Delgado served with the U.S. Army Reserve in Iraq and is now an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. A 2006 graduate of the New College of Florida, he lives in Sarasota, Florida.

New Protective State: Government, Intelligence and Terrorism

by Peter Hennessy

From the publisher:
The gathering of intelligence by the Secret Services is an issue of major importance in the modern world. It was on this basis that Bush and Blair decided to go to war, ensuring that arguments both for and against will go on beyond our own generation.

This title discusses the gathering of intelligence by the Secret Services.

Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: Ethics and Liberal Democracy

by Seumas Miller

From the publisher:
No one denies the impact of terrorism in the contemporary world, but when it comes to understanding the nature of terrorism and its ethical implications there is little agreement. Terrorism and our responses to it give rise to the profound moral issues addressed in this book, including the moral permissibility/impermissibility of terrorists using lethal force against non-combatants in the service of political goals, the practices of assassinating and torturing terrorists, and the infringement of civil liberties by security agencies for the purpose of protecting the lives of citizens against terrorist attacks.

By placing terrorism within the broader framework of contemporary liberal democracies, the author provides a strong basis with which to understand the effects of terrorism and the counter-measures used to combat it. This book is an important read for anyone interested in the ethics of terrorism in the modern world.

Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo

by Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence

From the publisher:
The amazing story of the soldiers, conservationists, and ordinary Iraqis who united to save the animals of the Baghdad Zoo

Woven through the narrative is Anthony's obvious love of animals and his anger at what they suffer at the hands of humans, lending a poignancy and immediacy to the story - Booklist

Iraq, Vietnam, and the Limits of American Power

by Robert K. Brigham

From the publisher:
A revised and updated edition of Is Iraq Another Vietnam?

"A superb contribution to our understanding of how these conflicts are the same, how they are different, and how they shape our world."- General Wesley K. Clark, former NATO Supreme Commander and author of Waging Modern War

Robert K. Brigham is the Shirley Ecker Boskey Professor of History and International Relations at Vassar College. He is the author of numerous books and essays on American foreign relations, including Argument Without End: In Search of the Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy written with Robert S. McNamara and James G. Blight.

By His Own Rules: The Story of Donald Rumsfeld

by Bradley Graham

From the publisher:
Once considered among the best and brightest of his generation, Donald Rumsfeld was exceptionally prepared to assume the Pentagon's top job in 2001. Yet six years later, he left office as the most controversial Defense Secretary since Robert McNamara, widely criticized for his management of the Iraq war and for his difficult relationships with Congress, administration colleagues, and military officers. Was he really the arrogant, errant, over-controlling Pentagon leader frequently portrayed — or as his supporters contend, a brilliant, hard-charging visionary caught in a whirl of polarized Washington politics, dysfunctional federal bureaucracy, and bad luck?

Bradley Graham, who closely covered Rumsfeld's challenging tenure at the Pentagon, offers an insightful biography of a complex and immensely influential personality. What emerges is a layered and revealing portrait of a man whose impact on U.S. national security affairs will long out-live him.

Bradley Graham has spent more than twenty-five years at The Washington Post in various reporting and editing assignments focused on military and foreign affairs. The author of Hit to Kill: The New Battle Over Shielding America From Missile Attack, he lives in Washington, D.C.

Terrorism Informatics: Knowledge Management and Data Mining for Homeland Security

by by Hsinchun Chen, Edna Reid, Joshua Sinai, Andrew Silke, and Boaz Ganor (Editor)

From the publisher:
Terrorism informatics has been defined as the application of advanced methodologies, information fusion and analysis techniques to acquire, integrate process, analyze, and manage the diversity of terrorism-related information for international and homeland security-related applications. The wide variety of methods used in terrorism informatics are derived from Computer Science, Informatics, Statistics, Mathematics, Linguistics, Social Sciences, and Public Policy and these methods are involved in the collection of huge amounts of information from varied and multiple sources and of many types in numerous languages. Information fusion and information technology analysis techniques which include data mining, data integration, language translation technologies, and image and video processing play central roles in the prevention, detection, and remediation of terrorism. While there has been substantial investment on computer technology research applications to terrorism, much of the results and the literature has been a fragmented hodgepodge that is too narrowly focused on unconnected and unlinked discipline domains. As a result, there has been little effort to relate the research across the discipline domains from which terrorism informatics is drawn.

TERROR INFORMATICS: Knowledge Management and Data Mining for Homeland Security will provide an interdisciplinary and comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art of terrorism informatics domain along three basic dimensions: methodological issues in terrorism research; information infusion techniques to support terrorism prevention, detection, and response; and legal, social, privacy, and data confidentiality challenges and approaches. The book will bring "knowledge" that can be used by scientists, security professionals, counterterrorism experts, and policy makers.

The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West

by Lee Harris

From the publisher:
Whether by choice or not, the West finds itself in a low-grade yet bitter war with Islamic fanaticism. It is a war the West is singularly ill equipped to fight. The foe is resistant to any of the normal methods of conflict resolution such as negotiation, economic sanctions, or conventional armed confrontation.

The Suicide of Reason shows how modern liberal societies, whose political theories are born of the Enlightenment, are unfamiliar with the nature of mass fanaticism. The West can only think of fanaticism as a social pathology, a failure to modernize, rather than as what it is: a variety of social order that is not only fully viable in the modern world but also willing to use weapons to which the West is uniquely vulnerable. A governing philosophy based on reason, tolerance, and consensus cannot defend itself against a strategy of ruthless violence without being radically transformed-or destroyed. Extraordinarily original and thought-provoking, The Suicide of Reason explains the logic of fanatical movements from the Crusades through Nazism to radical Islam; describes how the Enlightenment overcame fanatical thinking in the West; shows why most Western attempts to address the problem are doomed to fail; and offers strategies by which liberal internationalism can defend itself without becoming a mirror of the tribal forces it is trying to defeat.

Lee Harris is the author of Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History and a frequent contributor to Policy Review, the Wall Street Journal’s “Opinion Journal,” and other publications, both print and online. He lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

Go! Go! Go!: 17 Minutes That Changed the World

by Nigel McCrery

From the publisher:
n 1980, a group of terrorists seized the Iranian embassy in London and took captive everyone inside. When one of the hostages was murdered, the SAS Special Air Services of the British Army received their orders: “Go! Go! Go!” Seventeen minutes later, five of the six terrorists lay dead, and the last taken prisoner. The remaining hostages all survived, and no Special Forces man died. This mission carried out in daylight at the Prime Minister’s demand, so that the world could see catapulted the SAS overnight from obscurity to worldwide fame. Written with the active involvement of the men who participated, this fascinating work features a host of revelations that will surprise even the most dedicated SAS enthusiast, and interest everyone concerned with terrorism in our dangerous age.

Baghdad Bonanza: Iraq's Failed Reconstruction

by Pratap Chatterjee

From the publisher:
"If you feel you only have time to read two American writers about the disaster in Iraq, your choice is easy: Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker and Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch."-David Weir, Stanford University

After five years of occupation and billions of US dollars spent, Iraq has less electricity, less drinkable water, and even less oil than before the invasion. Who got the tens of billions of dollars to rebuild the country, and what did they do with the money? To find out, Pratap Chatterjee travels to Iraq three times and comes back telling stories and naming names. He describes spectacular examples of fraud, from the ex-convict who bought luxury cars and gold watches with money he received to fix a library, to the company that repainted the national airline's own equipment and tried to sell it back to the Iraqi government.

Chatterjee details how US contractors played a role in training death squads, why 190,000 missing US guns are exacerbating the security crisis, and what the big roles played by Halliburton and Bechtel are. Written in the same fast-paced style that made his Iraq, Inc. a hit, Baghdad Bonanza is fearless investigative writing, destined to have a profound impact. This is a complete how-NOT-to manual for policymakers and citizens alike, anyone concerned with the issues of occupation and reconstruction.

Pratap Chatterjee is managing editor of CorpWatch. He is the author of Earth Brokers (Routledge, 1994), and he has written for the Financial Times and the Guardian. Chatterjee has appeared on CNN International, BBC, Fox, and MSNBC, and he was the recipient of a National Federation of Community Broadcasters award for his work in Afghanistan.

The War on Islam

by Enver Masud

From the publisher:
A collection of essays revised to include new information about the war on terror, this analysis examines world affairs and dispels myths put forth from a doctored and complacent United Sates media. Urgent, important, and topical, this treatise gives insight into American's reputation around the world as well as how to rid the American public of their misconceptions about Islam. This exploration also attempts to increase international understanding of Islam and Muslim life, offering a balanced truth of the culture and religion.

Enver Masud is the founder and CEO of the Wisdom Fund. He worked as an engineering and management consultant for the World Bank and USAID around the world.

Inside Iran

by Mark Edward Harris

From the publisher:
The Islamic Republic of Iran is at the center of world attention politically, socially, and culturally—but it remains largely a cipher to the West. Award-winning photographer Mark Edward Harris has traveled throughout Iran to produce the first contemporary photographic book on a place seldom seen or understood. His images of daily life offer a fascinating look at a society of juxtapositions—ancient and modern, commercial and spiritual, serene and intense, political and personal. With chapter introductions and extended captions providing context for the images, Inside Iran is a crucial look at a country whose future is likely to influence our own.

Mark Edward Harris has traveled and photographed in more than 70 countries and is the author of several books, most recently Inside North Korea. He lives in Los Angeles.

Generation Kill

by Evan Wright

From the publisher:
Within hours of 9/11, America's war on terrorism fell to those like the 23 Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ended combat since Vietnam. They were a new breed of American warrior unrecognizable to their forebears-soldiers raised on hip hop, Internet porn, Marilyn Manson, video games and The Real World, a band of born-again Christians, dopers, Buddhists, and New Agers who gleaned their precepts from kung fu movies and Oprah Winfrey. Cocky, brave, headstrong, wary, and mostly unprepared for the physical, emotional, and moral horrors ahead, the "First Suicide Battalion" would spearhead the blitzkrieg on Iraq, and fight against the hardest resistance Saddam had to offer.

Generation Kill is the funny, frightening, and profane firsthand account of these remarkable men, of the personal toll of victory, and of the randomness, brutality, and camaraderie of a new American war.

Evan Wright is a reporter for Rolling Stone.

From LWBN
This is the first paperbak edition of a previously published hardback.

War and Media Operations: The US Military and the Press from Vietnam to Iraq

by Thomas Rid

From the publisher:
This is the first academic analysis of the role of embedded media in the 2003 Iraq War, providing a concise history of US military public affairs management since Vietnam.

In late summer 2002, the Pentagon considered giving the press an inside view of the upcoming invasion of Iraq. The decision was surprising, and the innovative "embedded media program" itself received intense coverage in the media. Its critics argued that the program was simply a new and sophisticated form of propaganda. Their implicit assumption was that the Pentagon had become better at its news management and had learned to co-opt the media.

This new book tests this assumption, introducing a model of organizational learning and redraws the US military’s cumbersome learning curve in public affairs from Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, the Balkans to Afghanistan, examining whether past lessons were implemented in Iraq in 2003. Thomas Rid argues that while the US armed forces have improved their press operations, America’s military is still one step behind fast-learning and media-savvy global terrorist organizations.

War and Media Operations will be of great interest to students of the Iraq War, media and war, propaganda, political communications and military studies in general.