“The Age of the Warrior”

Two weeks ago I came over a new book by Robert Fisk, Britain’s well-known Middle East correspondent, called The Age of the Warrior – Selected Writings. The book is a selection of articles written by Fisk for the British newspaper The Independent. Most of the articles, with some exceptions, are written between 2005 and 2007. [...]

What happened if you unsuccessfully tried to run away from slavery

In Michael B. Oren’s newest book, Power, Faith and Fantasy – America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, he quotes what Thomas Nicholson witnessed after he and 14 other American seamen had been enslaved by corsairs in the Mediterranean in February 1809. The corsairs had taken them back to Algiers where they had [...]

Setting the Desert on Fire

Her ein dag kom eg over ei ny bok, Setting the Desert on Fire av James Barr, ein britisk historikar. Boka har undertittelen T. E. Lawrence and Britain’s Secret War in Arabia, 1916-18 og er like mykje ei skildring av Lawrence som den er av den britiske kampanjen i Arabia. Lawrence spelar den største personrolla [...]