Fawaz A. Gerges
Author of Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy
About the Author
Fawaz A. Gerges is professor of international relations and Emirates Chair in Contemporary Middle East Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of several acclaimed books, including ISIS: A History (Princeton), The New Middle East, and The Far Enemy. Twitter show more @FawazGerges show less
Works by Fawaz A. Gerges
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Lebanon
USA - Birthplace
- Lebanon
- Education
- London School of Economics (MS)
Oxford University (PhD) - Short biography
- Fawaz A. Gerges is a Lebanese-American academic and author with expertise on the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, international relations, Al Qaeda, and relations between the Islamic and Western worlds. He is currently a Professor of Middle East Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also holds the Emirates Chair of the Contemporary Middle East at the LSE and was the inaugural Director of the LSE Middle East Centre.
Gerges is a leading public intellectual and one of the world’s top Middle East scholars. He has appeared on television and radio networks throughout the world, including CNN, ABC, CBS, NPR, the BBC and Al Jazeera. During the weeks leading up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, he was a regular guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and The Charlie Rose Show.
On the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, Oxford University Press released Gerges' book, The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda (2011). Gerges' newest book, published by Pelgrave Macmillan is Obama and the Middle East
Members
Reviews
ISIS: A History by Fawaz A. Gerges
Very informative book. I admit being very confused about the past and current conflicts in the Middle East. The author did a good job presenting the data in a succinct manner, and I appreciate his objective inferences about the significance of certain events. I honestly will read this book again to better grasp the information.
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.News doesn't always let us see things from different angles. The author provides this new perspective and still leaves you room to think. Well researched and plenty of references for any further questions.
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.I visited my 89-year old father last month. He told me that he keeps his TV tuned to Fox News because "he wants to see what kind of people we're dealing with."
My Dad. An engineer. A thinking person.
I wanted to be able to tell him that, if he was looking for honest, objective reporting, he needed to look elsewhere and not latch onto Fox because it fed his old-guy rage that things weren't the way they used to be, but I lacked the courage.
All of which is pretty much to say that I wish my father would read Fawaz Gerges' book. It is written with passion AND clarity, which -- when you think about it -- is a fairly uncommon combination. Gerges lays out with stunning precision how the Middle East got to be the restive place it is, what the role of the US was in this, how our leadless fearers seem inevitably bound to see EVERYTHING through a Cold War lens, how numbingly worse the George W. Bush 'cowboy Crusade' approach made things, and so on ...
... finishing, as the book's title promises, with the topic of Obama: how Obama's soaring rhetoric promised sweeping change with regard to the United States' relationship with the Middle East -- how this President started out with strong intentions but was dragged under both by his own cautious nature and the stuck-in-peanut-butter-and-concrete status quo in DC.
The book is superbly organized and laid out. For the most part Gerges' writing is superb, although there is an occasional bizarre word choice that lets you know that English -- although he is better with it than 98% of Americans -- is not his first language.
I highly recommend this book to everyone interested in modern politics, the Middle East, I especially recommend it to people who are living under the delusion that "they hate us for our freedoms." They don't. They hate us, if they hate us at all, because we have acted like playground bullies for decades, and seem incapable of stopping.… (more)
My Dad. An engineer. A thinking person.
I wanted to be able to tell him that, if he was looking for honest, objective reporting, he needed to look elsewhere and not latch onto Fox because it fed his old-guy rage that things weren't the way they used to be, but I lacked the courage.
All of which is pretty much to say that I wish my father would read Fawaz Gerges' book. It is written with passion AND clarity, which -- when you think about it -- is a fairly uncommon combination. Gerges lays out with stunning precision how the Middle East got to be the restive place it is, what the role of the US was in this, how our leadless fearers seem inevitably bound to see EVERYTHING through a Cold War lens, how numbingly worse the George W. Bush 'cowboy Crusade' approach made things, and so on ...
... finishing, as the book's title promises, with the topic of Obama: how Obama's soaring rhetoric promised sweeping change with regard to the United States' relationship with the Middle East -- how this President started out with strong intentions but was dragged under both by his own cautious nature and the stuck-in-peanut-butter-and-concrete status quo in DC.
The book is superbly organized and laid out. For the most part Gerges' writing is superb, although there is an occasional bizarre word choice that lets you know that English -- although he is better with it than 98% of Americans -- is not his first language.
I highly recommend this book to everyone interested in modern politics, the Middle East, I especially recommend it to people who are living under the delusion that "they hate us for our freedoms." They don't. They hate us, if they hate us at all, because we have acted like playground bullies for decades, and seem incapable of stopping.… (more)
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.Just finished the book, I won through the early reviewers. Very good book, did not go into alot of the sins of exploitation by the west on the middle east, but enough to realize that the rhteroic of " they hate our freedoms" is a bunch of lies. The deep seated hatred the middle east has for the west goes way deeper than the shallow musings of the American conservative media. Mr. Gerges does a very good job of laying out his arguement of why America has missed it's moment of reconciliation in the middle east, but says not all is lost and that America has made strides to right some of the wrongs of the west. The author does realize that the arab, israeli conflict is very thorny and will not be resolved in two terms of any president. I recommend it as a good starting place to understand the current relationship between the east and west.… (more)
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Statistics
- Works
- 12
- Members
- 583
- Popularity
- #43,005
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 11
- ISBNs
- 50
- Languages
- 2
