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THE GREAT WAR FOR CIVILISATION
Presents an account of 50 years of bloodshed and tragedy in the Middle East. This book tells the story of the growing hatred of the West by millions of Muslims, the West’s cynical support for the Middle East’s ruthless dictators, and America’s powerful military presence in the world’s most dangerous lands.
ISBN: 9781841150086
Publisher: HARPER PERENNIAL
Subtitle: THE CONQUEST OF THE MIDDLE EAST
Author: ROBERT FISK -
THE DANCING GIRLS OF LAHORE
The dancing girls of Lahore inhabit the Diamond Market in the shadow of a great mosque. The twenty-first century goes on outside the walls of this ancient quarter but scarcely registers within. Though their trade can be described with accuracy as prostitution, the dancing girls have an illustrious history: Beloved by emperors and nawabs, their sophisticated art encompassed the best of Mughal culture. The modern-day Bollywood aesthetic, with its love of gaudy spectacle, music, and dance, is their distant legacy. But the life of the pampered courtesan is not the one now being lived by Maha and her three girls. What they do is forbidden by Islam, though tolerated; but they are gandi, “unclean,” and Maha’s daughters, like her, are born into the business and will not leave it.
Sociologist Louise Brown spent four years in the most intimate study of the family life of a Lahori dancing girl. With beautiful understatement, she turns a novelist’s eye on a true story that beggars the imagination. Maha, a classically trained dancer of exquisite grace, had her virginity sold to a powerful Arab sheikh at the age of twelve; when her own daughter Nena comes of age and Maha cannot bring in the money she once did, she faces a terrible decision as the agents of the sheikh come calling once more.
ISBN: 9780060740436
Publisher: HARPER PERENNIAL
Subtitle:
Author: LOUISE BROWN -
MUHAMMAD
From the bestselling writer of ‘The History of God’ and the widely acclaimed ‘Islam – A Short History’ comes Karen Armstrong’s ‘Muhammad’.
Karen Armstrong has become one of our most important and relevant commentators on religious world affairs today, consistently providing a scholarly but accessible approach to humanity’s relationships with God and religion.
To date, there have been very few books written on the Islamic prophet of the religion that is followed by over the 1.2 billion Muslims who make up a fifth of the world’s population.
Muhammad’s staggering achievements as a human being quite simply altered the course of history as we know it and continue to this day to inspire humanity.
Muslims claim that in 650 AD, at the age of forty, Muhammad had a visitation from the Angel Gabriel telling him that he had been chosen to learn, recite and spread the words of God to man in verses that would later make up the Qu’ran. He slowly developed into a prophet, preaching monotheism to the masses.
He was initially mocked and rejected by many and risked numerous assassination attempts throughout his life. At a critical time, he also made the revolutionary decision to break all ties with his Muslim tribe thereby proclaiming that the bonds of Islam took precedence over anything else. The Islamic empire thus expanded into Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, North Africa and Spain.
Karen Armstrong has written a fascinating account of this figure whose life and influence has determined the course of the spiritual life of human kind.
ISBN: 9780007256068
Publisher: HARPER PERENNIAL
Subtitle: PROPHET FOR OUR TIME
Author: KAREN ARMSTRONG -
THE POISONWOOD BIBLE
ISBN: 9780060786502
Publisher: HARPER PERENNIAL
Subtitle:
Author: BARBARA KINGSOLVER -
THE TRUE STORY OF A LONE GENIUS WHO SOLVED THE GREATEST SCIENTIFIC PRO
The tenth anniversary edition of the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest: the search for the solution of how to calculate longitude and the unlikely triumph of an English genius. With a new Foreword by the celebrated astronaut Neil Armstrong.
Anyone alive in the 18th century would have known that ‘the longitude problem’ was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day – and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives, and the increasing fortunes of nations, hung on a resolution.
Full of heroism and chicanery, brilliance and the absurd, Longitude is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation and clock making.
ISBN: 0007214227
Publisher: HARPER PERENNIAL
Subtitle:
Author: DAVA SOBEL -
IN THE ROSE GARDEN OF THE MARTYRS
An insider’s account of Iran, one of the most mysterious but significant and powerful nations in the world.
ISBN: 0007113943
Publisher: HARPER PERENNIAL
Subtitle: A MEMOIR OF IRAN
Author: CHRISTOPHER DE BELLAIGUE₨ 3,580 -
ALEXANDER THE CORRECTOR
This title reveals the story of Alexander Cruden, who single-handedly compiled the monumental dictionary/index/gazetteer to the Bible, ‘Cruden’s Concordance’ — still going strong 260 years later.
ISBN: 0007131968
Publisher: HARPER PERENNIAL
Subtitle: THE TORMENTED GENIUS WHO UNWROTE THE BIBLE, ‘ A PERFECTLY LOVELY BOOK BT A BIOGRAPHY OF RARE TALENT’
Author: JULIA KEAY -
COUNTDOWN TO VICTORY
In most accounts of World War II, the last six months of fighting in Europe are tucked into an epilogue. After the Battle of the Bulge, the Nazis are assumed to be as good as defeated. In fact, they fought to their last breath. In the Hurtgen Forest, in the Po Valley of Italy, and in the German industrial heartland of the Ruhr, the Allie’s suffered horrific losses.
Drawing on never-before-published sources, Barry Turner captures the thrill of victory, the despair of defeat, and the staggering human costs of war. From the grunts on the ground to the machinations of generals and statesmen and the daily miseries of civilians caught in the crossfire, Turner brings this critical chapter of World War II sparingly and indelibly to life.
ISBN: 0060742828
Publisher: HARPER PERENNIAL
Subtitle: THE FINAL EUROPEAN CAMPAIGNS OF WORLD WAR II
Author: BARRY TURNER -
THE TEMPLE & THE MOSQUE
ISBN: 9789350291528
Publisher: HARPER PERENNIAL
Subtitle: THE BEST OF PREMCHAND
Author: RAKHSHANDA JALIL -
NOT QUITE WHAT I WAS PLANNING
ISBN: 9780061374050
Publisher: HARPER PERENNIAL
Subtitle: SIX-WORD MEMORIES BY WRITERS FAMOUS AND OBSCURE
Author: RACHEL FERSHLEISER