the Middle East
Tim Franks goes in search of what it means to be Jewish
In a thought-provoking family history, the BBC journalist addresses questions of identity – and to what extent we are products of our forebears
The adventures of the indomitable Dorothy Mills
The society rebel with a fondness for cross-dressing travelled widely in Africa, South America and the Middle East, dying in 1959, aged 70, with bags packed for the next expedition
Tall tales of the Golden East: the fabulous fabrications of two 20th-century con artists
Capitalising on his Afghan-Indian heritage, Ikbal Shah claimed to have crucial inside knowledge of Central Asia, while his son Idries later purveyed a rebranded Sufism for the West
Hell on Earth
More than 100 interviews with surviving detainees and former prison workers reveal how profoundly shocking President Assad’s regime continues to be
Prophesying doom
Janine di Giovanni’s book begins in a Paris apartment during the first lockdown. She’s at a friend’s home, which she…
Nostalgia for the Ottomans
One of the most depressing vignettes in Michael Vatikiotis’s agreeably meandering account of his cosmopolitan family’s experiences in the Near…
What the Pope’s visit means for Iraq
You could be forgiven for taking a cynical view of Pope Francis’s visit to Iraq this weekend. How could the…
Heroism in a hopeless cause: why the crusades remain fascinating
The crusades are part of everyone’s mental image of the Middle Ages. They extended, in one form or another, from…
A hero of our time
I have met Dr Kissinger, properly, only three times. First, in Cairo, in 1980, when, as a junior diplomat escorting…
The sick man of Europe finally succumbs
In a possibly apocryphal story, Henry Kissinger, while visiting Beijing in 1972 as Nixon’s national security adviser, asked Zhou Enlai,…
Big Cheese in MI6
Second world war deception operations are now widely known, particularly those which misled the Germans into thinking that the D-Day…
City of a thousand and one nights
Ali A. Allawi on the fluctuating fortunes of Iraq’s fabled capital
The enlightened one
‘Arabist’ is fast becoming an archaism. Perhaps it is already one. These days the word conjures up enchanting visions of…
With death came glory
Eschewing the biblical advertising of ‘the promised land’ or indeed ‘a land of milk and honey’, the Conservative colonial secretary…
The Great Game in Arabia
How do you write a new book about T.E. Lawrence, especially when the man himself described his escapades, or a…
Outfoxed in the desert
What an unedifying affair the war in the North African desert was, at least until November 1942 and the victory…
Songs of the blood and the sword
Douglas Murray 28 October 2017 9:00 am
Jihadi Culture might sound like a joke title for a book, like ‘Great Belgians’ or ‘Canadian excitements’. But in this…