Best of Enemies: A History of US and Middle East Relations, Part One: 1783-1953 - Hardcover

Filiu, Jean-Pierre; B., David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1906838453 ISBN 13: 9781906838454

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, 2012

Synopsis

“Best of Enemies is surely destined to stand alongside Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis as a graphic history of the Middle East. A must read for anyone interested in learning, or teaching, about the region.”—Mark Levine, professor of history at UC-Irvine and author of Heavy Metal Islam
 
In the third volume of their graphic history of US and Middle East relations, Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B. take in the tumultuous period that began with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and ended with Obama’s decision, in 2013, not to intervene in Syria.
 
Spanning the First Gulf War, the rise of al-Qaeda, the military response to September 11, and the present conflict in Syria, Best of Enemies: Part Three is propelled by a clash between four presidents and their Middle Eastern antagonists: on the one hand, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama; on the other, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and Bashar al-Assad. Covering 30 years of conflict and diplomacy, Best of Enemies: Part Three is a breezy and engaging guide to the events that shaped the politics of today.

About this title

About the Author

Jean-Pierre Filiu, a historian and Arabist, is a professor at Sciences Po, Paris. He has been an advisor to the French Minister for the Interior and regularly lectures at Harvard and MIT.
 
David B. is an Eisner-nominated artist best known for his graphic novel Epileptic.

Reviews

From the cover of this impressive historical précis, FDR and King Ibn Saud stare impassively. They are seated on a huge pipe in front of a meander of more pipes. The metallic maze signifies what brings them together—oil—and exemplifies David B.’s illustrative strategy in the book. He characteristically evokes the political and economic implications of the narrative by replacing naturalistic detail with striking symbols, such as cannons with legs during the earliest American encounter with the Islamic East, and plenty of pipelines later on. Diplomat turned historian Filiu’s text opens with the main action of the ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, then rehearses three historic encounters between the U.S. and the dar al-Islam: the Barbary Wars of the Jefferson and Madison administrations; the alliance with Saudi Arabia for oil to fuel WWII; and the 1953 CIA-engineered coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh’s government in Iran. Filiu’s presentation is very even-handed. Neither the cruel superciliousness of the Barbary pirate states nor the crafty treachery of Kermit Roosevelt in Tehran is whitewashed or sensationalized. --Ray Olson

Edition details

• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1906838453
• ISBN 13: 9781906838454
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 120