Tags: Children's Books, History & Historical Fiction, Asia,

Book Description:
The Middle East, broadly defined, has long been a nodal point of US foreign policy. In a seemingly constant state of upheaval, the region lurches from crisis to crisis. The few things that tie the region together is an across-the-board lack of democracy; enormous gaps between wealth and poverty; vast disparities between the tiny oil-bloated emirates and the massive, restless populations of Egypt and other resource-deprived states; and the growing poverty-, repression-, and occupation-fueled Islamist-oriented movements reflecting spiraling discontent throughout the region. Unlocking the Middle East brings together over three decades of work by Richard Falk, a leading observer of the region and analyst/critic of US policy toward it. Beginning with 1969 Lebanon, then giving a close and critical examination of the Iranian revolution of 1979, and moving through the final decades of the twentieth century to the second Palestinian uprising that opened the twenty-first century, Falk's prescient and comprehensive assessments provide valuable insight to the region's spiraling discontent. The book includes sections on the geopolitics of the region and US policy toward it, Islam in history and in newer political forms, the international law implications of the Lebanon war, and the Iranian revolution. Through it all, runs the stream of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The book also includes the 2001 report of the United Nations Human Rights Inquiry Commission, appointed by the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, of which Falk was a leading member.