This book explains what's going on in the Middle East. It would be exciting to read even if it was fiction, but it's all true and very recent. After reading it I could understood events on TV news from the Middle East for the first time. Read the first chapter about one of his interviews and see what you think.

This book explains what's going on in the Middle East. It would be exciting to read even if it was fiction, but it's all true and very recent.

After reading it I could understood events on TV news from the Middle East for the first time. Read the first chapter about one of his interviews and see what you think.

I opened this one Christmas, and thought, here's one that I'll never get to.

That is until I actually opened it and started reading. Like many "journalistic" histories this book does jump around a bit, and there were sections I "blip-read", but this is the first book I have read on this area and subject where I felt like the author had enough personal experience to talk about historical events and make it appear alive-- and deadly.

What an experience reading this book has been. I have been skeptical of Western intervention in the Middle East, and I knew a lot of nasty stuff was going on. I still got nauseous reading about Mossadeq in Iran and the Armenian genocide (which is to this day still in the headlines).

This book is also a strong argument for publishing fat books in two volumes.

Normally it takes me maybe four or five hours to finish a whole book. With this one, I would read for four hours and discover I had read maybe 50 pages.

There is a lot of information in here. Fisk often rambles on and on, and he could have seriously used an editor, but when he writes from his perspective about something interesting, it is really interesting. He doesn't bother being polite or diplomatic about something. He is equally as hard and fair on the Iraqis, Iranians, Americans, Israelis, Palestinians, Soviets and British as he is on every subject. And in a lot of cases it is really interesting to read the different perspectives of certain events.

In any event this is a good read if you are interested in the Middle East. Robert Fisk is certainly opinionated. But anyone growing up post-911 has built up their own fair share of opinions and biases towards this part of the world. There is a certain kind of intrinsic value in reading books like this; books which provide different perspectives than the ones we hold.

Normally it takes me maybe four or five hours to finish a whole book. With this one, I would read for four hours and discover I had read maybe 50 pages.

There is a lot of information in here. Fisk often rambles on and on, and he could have seriously used an editor, but when he writes from his perspective about something interesting, it is really interesting. He doesn't bother being polite or diplomatic about something. He is equally as hard and fair on the Iraqis, Iranians, Americans, Israelis, Soviets and British as he is on every subject. And in a lot of cases it is really interesting to read the different perspectives of certain events.

In any event this is a very good read if you are interested in the Middle East. It has biases, but in understanding its biases you easily can get a better understanding about the biases and propaganda that the West is subjected to regarding all things Middle Eastern.

"The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East" is journalist Robert Fisk's very personal treatise on how the present Middle East "situation" has come about.

At a over 1300 pages this book is certainly exhaustive as Fisk covers just about every aspect of Middle East history over the last 100 years -and hammers home his points at length. Not surprisingly, the USA, UK, and Israel come in for his most ferocious criticism and one begins to feel a bit frustrated with Fisk as he criticises the UK and USA when they do act AND when they don't act - leaving one thinking: well what exactly are they supposed to do?

The highlights of the book are his meetings with Osama Bin Laden, his experiences during the Iran-Iraq war, and his first-hand account of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. These occur in the first half of the book but from then on it becomes rather heavy going - though still worthwhile.

This book should be read by all students of the Middle East.

It took me a while to read this book, and whoever gets it better understand it's a daunting book to read. It's all worthwhile at the end, as you will get a history lesson from someone that lived threw most of the stories told in this book.

I devoted at least 7 months of 2006 to reading this huge work. It is without doubt the most depressing book I have read. The unrelenting description of man's inhumanity to man does not make for happy reading. The subject matter almost dictated that this book needed to be read through to its conclusion, however, the bleak, nihilistic content did not make for happy bedtimes. It only gets 3 stars from me because Mr Fisk does not give alternatives to his description of these shocking events. I would hope things need not be so bleak, but Mr Fisk gives me no hope that the worst wont happen as a matter of course.

Sir,

It was in November 12th 2007 when I made my purchase, and I received your response where the book was promised to come in December 26th 2007. Now, more than couple of weeks after the deadline, there are no signs of the book yet.

What shall I do?

Valde Mikkonen

Robert Fisk has helped me understand the problem in the Middle East. It is utterly disappointing how world leaders have handled the people living in and around Middle East. (And other parts of the world) What is even more disturbing is the way international news papers have been and are covering and informing us about world conflicts.

The reading will give you a more balanced view of the important issues that we are facing when forming foreign policies in the future. This understanding is given through a comprehensive description of the failures made by the winners of the First World War and how that is affecting our lives today.

What is also important contribution by Mr Fisk is the way he describes and makes us remember the cruel nature of mankind under bad leadership.

Finally, the book has been written by great journalistic skill and a personal touch by Mr Fisk throughout the whole book.

Robert Fisk's "The Great War for Civilisation" is a massive tome of some 1,111 pages including its index. It can, at times, be heavy going. At many times, it is certainly harrowing. However, to the diligent reader it will probably prove rewarding.

I am sure that Fisk has many critics as he is not afraid of expressing an opinion. Yet his knowledge, often drawn from first hand experience is difficult to challenge. For some 30 plus years, Fisk has been domiciled in the Middle East. He calls Beirut his home but is widely travelled throughout the region. His knowledge of Iraq and its troubles is unambiguously and directly drawn from his own travels as a journalist.

His vivid description of events is not for the faint hearted. If we were to rely for our knowledge upon television and the press, we would not come to understand just how brutal and demoralising this region has become. Fisk's description of the carnage in the first Gulf War when the Iraqi forces were decimated by far superior American fire power is haunting. War is never pretty and Fisk can certainly attest to this point.

As the book rolls on, Fisk gradually shifts from an expansive view of modern Middle East history including Afghanistan, Iran and Algeria to the finer details of the fall of Saddam and its aftermath. Towards the end of the book, he refers to one of his own articles publish in the London "Independent" on 17 April 2003. Its concluding words are prophetic:

"So I'll make an awful prediction. That America's war of `liberation' is over. Iraq's war of liberation from the Americans is about to begin. In other words, the real and frightening story starts now."

Tragically, Fisk's view has been proven right. No one should weep for the overthrow of Saddam. The man was a butcher. Yet, how did the Iraqi people come to deserve their current hell?

This book is one of the best accounts of the conflicts that have scarred North Africa and the Middle East over the past 30 years. As he travels around this small section of the world, Robert Fisk writes clearly and engagingly about the events that took place. Cleverly interwoven into the book are stories of his own family and historical events, such as the Armenian genocide and its influence upon international politics today.

At times the detailed descriptions of the violence, destruction and carnage wrought on millions of peoples lives becomes almost too much, even for the most hardened of reader. While the reader can become desensitized to it by the end, it is worth remembering that this book is not science fiction, but reports of actual occurrences.

If you want a very good background on the recent history of the Middle East, then this is the book to read.

Probably the most neutral analysis by a Westerner regarding the problems of Middle East and between the Mid East and the West and how history is repeating itself. Its not only history but also the philosophy of it.

Fisk's eye witness accounts in the Afghan Jihad, the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf war (and the list goes on and on) adds value to the content as it does not only deal with Macro issues but also the micro ones i.e. ordinary men, women & children bieng affected by such regional developments. His ability to connect the recent past's or present events of the Middle East with those of US and EU in the 19th and early part of 20th century, and the insight into the possible outcomes in the region as a result of the West's hypocritical as well as an imperialist attitude towards it; may make this book a Must have for years to come. For no other book at present deals with so much detail about the great war or WW-4 (as per the neo-cons claim that the Cold War was WW-3)

Robert Fisk is a journalist who has high standards, and seems to have little respect for colleagues who fail to maintain similar objectivity.

He knows the importance of the words journalists use. Calling the wall the Israelis are building through Palestinian territory a "wall" is important, because that is what it is. Calling it a "barrier" or a "fence", as the Israeli authorities and most of the Western media do, is to belittle what it really is, to deny the truth of what is being visited on the Palestinian people.

Accepting the term "targeted killings" and "collateral damage" when what you are talking about is assassination and the massacre of innocent civilians are massive value judgments that also hide the truth.

"The Great War for Civilization The Conquest of the Middle East" is his magnum opus, the result of decades covering the Middle East. It is amazing, it is extremely depressing, and it should have been cut up into two or three volumes. This book is just too huge to carry around and read. It is even too heavy to comfortably read in bed.

While conflict between the West and the Islamic world goes back to the Crusades (and in fact to the Arab invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire, a point Fisk fails to make) Fisk traces the current problems to the settlement of World War I, using the war career of his father from time to time to illustrate his points. The end of the war saw massive betrayals of the people of the Middle East. Despite the promises of T.E. Lawrence, the Arabs did not receive Palestine and Syria for their own. The Kurds were denied their Kurdistan, likewise the Armenians, massacred by the Turks, only received a Soviet republic under the control of Russia. Jordan and Iraq were created as vassal states of Britain, and Egypt continued to be one. The tensions brewing since then are behind many of the current eruptions.

Fisk's story is bleak, and he criticizes virtually everyone, from Britain, France, and US to Saddam's Iraq, fundamentalist Iran, and all sides in Algeria. Halfway through the second chapter on Israel's horrid treatment of the Palestinians I couldn't take it any longer and skipped ahead to the next chapter. But impossible as it had seemed, that just brought me to the even greater horrors of Algeria, the mutual atrocities of France and the FLN liberation movement, and how when they were the government the FLN taught the Islamic rebels how to commit the same crimes against humanity after they denied them their election victory.

The final chapters about Iraq are instructive because most of the current crop of books about how the US went wrong are from the American point of view. Fisk tells the story from the Iraqi perspective, going back to the early days of the pre-invasion bombing when despite all the assurance of precision targeting, the arrogant and avoidable slaughter of civilians just created an army of opposition.

If anyone wants to understand why there are terrorists, rather than accepting the ridiculous "they hate us because they hate freedom", this book outlines what we have done to the people of the Islamic world, and why they have little reason to love us.

This is a must-read. Fisk's experiences are amazing and it's a roller-coaster through the messy hell that is the middle east. I'm familiar with much of the history, but his personal life seams it all together rather impressively. He's put his life on the line (on both sides of the line) for the truth. He's a great writer and an inspiring journalist. I'm glad he didn't follow a time line and that he's willing to occasionally lash out at leaders who are blindly revered. Our (US & UK) leaders' foreign policies are adopted from previous administrations with little thought or foresight. If you're interested in the Middle East, you need to read this book.

The Great War for Civilization, by Robert Fisk:

This is the only intelligently-written Arabist work I've ever seen. It's worth the long read.

I am a sympathizer for Zionism, served in Vietnam and Desert Shield, even attended the IDF parachute course. However, if they want to understand today's Middle East, everyone should read this counter-view.

I feel wiser, or perhaps broader for having done so.

The book "The great war for civilisation", by Robert Fisk, is wonderful, mostly for its vivid and honest telling of the history the author has lived in thr last 40 years.
Even not having finished its reading (it's a 1,100 pages book!), I can see the author does not leaves "stone on stone" (translated from a Portuguese sentence). He show how ignorant people of developed countries can be (to make a monument in Vincennes, indiana, USA, to USS Vincennes, which blowed up a civil plane, killing 290 people, is terrible!), and how dishonest governments like Reagan's and Thatcher's were. Please, divulge this book!

It's hard to exaggerate when trying to accord sufficient praise for this great book. As a pure work of journalistic reportage it seems impossible to beat, let alone come near to its level of sincerity, humanity and scope. I don't know how Mr. Fisk was able to collate and make such sense of so much material, and survive the ordeal.
Whatever one's own proclivities may be in the world of politics and religion, I don't think anyone could quarrel with the author's many observations, which are so clearly animated by an overriding sense of outrage at the callous and sensless brutality which he has so often witnessed in person in the countries where he has been a reporter.
He tries his best to be impartial, and indeed it is virtually impossible to know where the truth lies in a world of spin and manipulation. However, he clearly shows a penchant for the Muslim argument in the Middle East, and certainly there must be a lot to be said in his favour, even if he is not always wholly convincing.
This, however, is but a quibble compared with the might and majesty of this splendid book, which I would recommend anyone who is in any way concerned with the Arab world to read, and learn from.

Fisk's narrative pulls no punches, and does a superb job of recounting events ranging from the Iran-Iraq War to the Armenian genocide the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the Palestinian Israeli conflict to the current War in Iraq -- as well as many other events relevant to the contemporary Middle East (and U.S. foreign policy in the region).

I found the account to be depressing at times, but for those who are looking for a thought-provoking, and engaging narrative this is a great place to start. No easy answers, and plenty of information to digest. The best kind of reading.

I read every word in this book. At first I was skeptical that it could all be true, but on completion I believe it is. I highly recommend this book to all.

It is an excellent way to learn just how big a mistake was made by the US and GB in trying to overthrow the goverment in Iraq and establish a puppet democracy.

here is a writer who lived in the middle east, who walked the streets and breathed the air, who talked to all the big heads and saw all the battles...he is not your typical expert who appear on CNN/Fox News... he has in-depth knowledge, i wish alan dershowitz can learn from him

read this and pitty the nation

Fisk is an amazing source of information! He has done his homework on all the subjects. As an American, it opened my eyes so much to the hypocricy of America and the cruelty along with some of the good things that America has done. It explains why the Middle East hates us and why it is the way it is nowadays and many other things. Go Fisk!

First, let me say that Fisk is a very good journalist, and it shows through in the personal details he records. He knows how to both write well and ask good questions. He also knows how to connect the dots well. And, he has stuck his head out -- a lot -- to get real war stories while refusing to "embed," whether with American troops, British ones, or any other forces.

Second is that he has what will probably seem to most Americans to be a refreshing, if not challenging, take on both Arab-Israeli issues and how the U.S. has often compounded trouble in the Middle East, primarily but by no means solely due to how it has handled Arab-Israeli issues.

Third, while, while his take on modern Israel could be called "anti-Zionist," it's a canard and a red herring to call it anti-Semitism. It's a canard because equating criticisms of the nation of Israel with attacks for ethnic reasons on the Jewish people is a simple lie, one propagated by intensely pro-Israel (vs. pro-Jewish/Judaism) lobbying agencies in the U.S. And, it's a red herring because it's designed to divert people's attention from Israel's legitimate human rights and international law problems, and the U.S.'s blind backing of much of this.

Related to that, he's not "anti-American" just against much of current American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Fourth, Fisk does report this fairly; above all, while asking the "why" questions about the 9/11 attacks that American journalists play "ostrich" with, he makes clear in many ways that he doesn't believe in "moral equivalence" or anything similar.

That said, the book is open to legitimate criticism. First, 1,000-plus pages is too long. About 750 would have been plenty; increase the type size 1 point and you're at 800. That said, better editing would have achieved that, plus tried to get more organization on the book. Fisk's reminisces about his father, while nice, should have been moved to another book. For organization, either a clearer chronological structure, or a tighter country-by-country structure, might have helped.

This is a well-written, fact-filled book, but is very hard to read because of the subject matter. It's about man's inhumanity to man and how it has played out for the last 50 years in the middle east. There are few heroes, except the author, and many, many, many villains. There are the Islamic fundamentalists, the Jewish fundamentalists, the Christian fundamentalists, the invading armies, and the ubiquitous arms dealers. One genocide after another - many that I was unaware of.

Most of all, the author relates a set of very human stories - tragedies for the most part. He tells about following a bomb back to its makers who refused to accept any responsibility for how it was used. They claimed that bombs are made to preserve the peace. He meets and talks to Osama Bin Laden and Kalashnikov. He tells the story of an ambulance bombing of innocents, a beautiful young women killed as she was about to begin her adult life, and more denial of responsibility. If you want to know how it really is in the middle east, read this book. But don't expect that you will come away feeling good. The author raises lots of questions that somehow we all have to answer in the coming years.

Fisk may be the most talented, insightful and knowledgeable journalists covering the Middle East. This book is a necessary read if one is to understand recent and current events in the area and our government role in such events. For anybody interested in the history and politics of the area, this book is a must.

Everyone concerned with contemporary world affairs should read this book. Fisk aims to capture the sweep of events in Western Asia over decades, and he largely succeeds.

It is not a great sweep-of-history book in the sense of Gibbon or Macaulay - Fisk is a journalist, not an historian - although it has great journalistic passages.

Fisk provides an indispensable antidote to much of the propaganda and disingenuousness that plagues mainline media on the subjects of the Middle East and terror, much the way the Internet is plagued with innumerable viruses and Trojan horses.

Robert Fisk is one of the world's great war correspondents, and if you haven't read him at his passionate best, read the sections of this book about the Soviet Union in Afghanistan or the first Gulf War. He has lived in the Middle East for decades, and he has hurled himself into the conflicts there time and again.

To some, particularly defenders of Israel's excesses, Fisk is a controversial figure. But there is relatively little legitimate controversy possible in Fisk's reporting. He writes what he has witnessed, and he has spent many years putting himself at risk to be a witness.

The faults of the book are few.

At over twelve hundred pages, it may prove off-putting for new readers, but if this is a fault from one perspective, it is a strength from another. The book stands as an invaluable, comprehensive reference for events in the Middle East over recent decades. Forgotten a name involved in a famous event or a date? You are almost sure to find it here.

One of Fisk's stylistic manners is to get the name of obscure witnesses, as an individual soldier, or details such as the serial number off the scrap of a shell used in a battle or incursion, verifying where it came from. These are the practices of a seasoned, professional journalist and often provide Fisk with leads to still other stories.

For new readers, it should be emphasized that Fisk generally is a clear writer, so the length of the book should not discourage you.

The other fault is its episodic nature, although again this is a fault only from some perspectives.

The episodic nature undoubtedly derives from Fisk work as a columnist, and I think it likely a good part of the book is taken from re-worked columns or old notebooks. It is important to stress that the book is not a collection of old columns, a common kind of book from so many columnists.

Fisk enjoys reading himself, and the sense of an omnivorous reader of newspapers and history books pervades his work.

This is a huge tome, telling of the bloody history of the Middle East, and the author's own experiences as a reporter in the area. Fisk's narrative jumps around a lot, from country to country and period to period: Afghanistan, Palestine, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, the Armenian holocaust and more are covered. However, as the author states in his introduction, the book is a personal view rather than an attempt at an historical account.

Fisk's anger at Western involvement in the region comes over loud and clear, particularly the support for the region's unspeakable regimes. How quickly we forget, for example, that Saddam Hussein was once supported and supplied by Western nations. Fisk spares the reader nothing regarding descriptions of the atrocities perpetrated by governments upon people, Muslim upon Muslim, and nation upon nation.

Perhaps Fisk's account is needed to draw attention to horrific reality. Indeed he is at his best when describing his personal experiences as a reporter. What is not on offer is a solution, perhaps because there simply aren't any. It certainly appears to be the case that the governments involved gave little or no thought to what would happen after the invasion of Iraq.

This massive volume could have done with some editing. Nonetheless, it's worth the harrowing read.

G Rodgers

I was amazed by how much Fisk had experienced in the middle east. There is lots of information provided about the history of the region that I was not aware of. So I enjoyed all of that and his personal experiences. But there were two things that I did not like. He is all over the place with his time line of stories. I would have preferred that he stuck with a time line. I found his style a little disjointed because of that.

The other thing I did not like is that about 50% of his info seems to be unbiased good information. About 45% seems to be unsubstantiated hearsay that he kind of presents as unbiased good information. And then the final 5% are these short, sort of unsubstantiated, sometimes out of context, outbursts of emotional charges against various world leaders.

So this book is a good one to read for much more background on what is going on in the middle east. But I would like to warn the reader to beware of what is real, what is rumor, and what is opinion. Worth a read but I think it could have been much better if edited for these weaknesses

Robert Fisk is a respected journalist, and an authentic expert on the Middle East. His book is a personally witnessed history of the last couple of decades in the region in the context of its history -- concentrating on the Iran-Iraq War, the first Gulf War, the 2003 US war against Saddam Hussein, and the subsequent insurgency.
Fisk reports the horrible facts; he is excellent on the history. He is also convinced that pretty much everything Israel does to ensure its survival in a hostile Arab sea (as it no doubt believes) is brutal and immoral; and that everything the United States does to advance its own interests is brutal, immoral, and heedless of the harm it causes the Arabs. Those guys, in his view, tend to be the injured party, and much less to blame. Some of that is true. Probably not as much as seen by Fisk.

Fisk describes individual suffering on all sides in the Middle East. He focuses more or the arab side but seems objective overall. His reports are heart breaking and made me ashamed of my government and ashamed of all man-kind. I am now even more cynical about politics, nationalism, large organizations and governments. Frank

I've looked over many other reviews and mostly agree with them, both the positives and negatives of this book.

Up front, I want to say that this is a necessary read to ever have a broad understanding of so many Middle East situations including Israel, Palestine, Iran, Afghanistan, and, of course, Iraq. It also helps considerably in understanding WHY there is "terrorism".

Probably the toughest part of reading the book is when Fisk writes about the many, many innocent people who have been killed or seriously injured over the decades in the Middle East both from war and from limiting the flow of goods into needy countries.. The book points out something we almost never feel and understand in depth It tells us the extent of so-called collateral damage when bombs are dropped from planes and helicopters in the name of getting rid of a single significant leader. It points out how often children are deprived of the nutrition they need as they grow up.

It tells of the tragedy of massive bombing of troops and cities. It raises in my mind the cost of war to human beings.

The book makes one consider the many wars and incidents and the relationship of these to "terrorism". It really takes to task the foreign policy of western governments (USA, UK, especially). It makes me wonder if the people making decisions have any understanding at all of the history of the Middle East..... the things that so many humans have been through, the resentment of western powers interfering in the Middle East in so many ways.

Lastly, as I finished reading this book (and it is a long book but an important read), I asked myself what I have learned. Rather than repeat things I have just written, I will summarize by saying that WAR is not the solution to anything. War is in many ways the easy way out of a situation. It is much easier to start bombing and shooting at perceived enemies than to try to understand the issues on both sides, to talk about them, to respectfully seek alternatives to war.

How many of us have ever really asked "Why the "terrorists" are doing what they do. How have they arrived at this point. How much have we contributed to their current position. "

And I realize how easy it was for the USA to go to war with Iraq making anyone who might question things a "terrorist sympathizer".

All of us need to understand as much as possible so that our votes and voices can be heard advocating solutions other than killing human beings.

Most of the criticism you've read in other reviews (lack of editing, too much detail, lack of proposals, etc) are valid. But the perspective Fisk brings to any analysis of the Middle East is indispensable. It will open the eyes of even well informed followers of the region's politics since 1979, particularly those living in the US.

A long compilation of what a reporter based in the "Middle East" has seen over thirty years, informed by two things: (1) his knowledge of history going back to the 1800s, and (2) his being there -- seeing things personally and taking them personally.

The results:

(1) When things happen, Fisk knows why they happened. We have all seen basketball players who shove their opponents when the ref's back is turned, in order to draw a foul on the other guy for retaliating: the "provocation" technique, as Israeli Prime Minister Sharett referred to it in his diaries. Fisk's long experience and historical view spare us the fate of the poor ref. (He could perhaps have drawn on others' reporting of things he didn't personally see to broaden his view even further.)

(2) We hear from the victims. Obviously, the victims aren't around to tell their side of a murder. Fisk takes their part.

As Fisk looks back on it all, he fundamentally sees the brutality and militarism. That's what the book is about.

Every nation has its share of the blame, but Fisk heaps the greater part of the blame on the stronger (the winners). Not only have they perpetrated more of the brutality up to now, but, by covering it up and silencing the victims, they are preparing future rounds.

The otherwise ironic title, "The Great War for Civilization," in the end represents an effort to tell truth to power and to demand that they behave like civilized people.

This book was highly recommended to me as the one book most likely to shed light on what's really going on in the Middle East, and it delivers: I don't think you'll find a volume (and it IS that) with more gory detail (literally) on the power dynamics, the whys and wherefores and who's-doing-what-to-whoms, in that part of the world.

It's worth noting that Mr. Fisk is as much of a historian as a correspondent here, and he does an excellent job at both. In fact, he is too good in some ways; he feels too much and shares too much detail. I don't think I have ever read a more effective "witness" to history, but often the reader feels as if he's listening to unedited audio tapes of reporting and coverage. There seems to be no editing, no effort to summarize, and he's all over the place topically, hopping from one subject to the next with dizzying regularity.

In a way, I think Fisk does this intentionally. It's clear that he feels a tremendous sense of injustice and indignation at how the press have oversimplified the situation in the region for decades, editing for the sake of clarity when things just aren't that clear. He refuses to do that here, spilling his guts all over the place, really, refusing to "dumb it down" for anyone or anybody. The effect is edifying, but really pretty difficult to get through and an effective soporific; the book can be a great substitute for Lunesta if your prescription's run out. You really have to buckle in to get through all 1000 pages, printed as they are in rather small type.

The main problem here, sadly, is that Fisk has the emotional intelligence of an adolescent boy. His petulant rage over the incalculable wrongs that litter the history and landscape of the region (which are absolutely horrifying) prevent him from presenting his case in a more cogent way. That said, it IS worth reading, as Fisk is clearly an intellectually brilliant man and understands the players involved and the way the pieces of the puzzle fit together as well as anyone alive. If you want to understand the Middle East- as any Westerner alive today should be required to- this is (somewhat unfortunately) your book.

This is a factual, un-biased narrative from a honest and courageous reporter. I loved his autobiographical style along with is objective historical analysis.
No independant and comprehensive study of the middle east conundrum is complete without a read of this book.

Who could but know what blood letting and butchering of human beings is really descriptive without reading this great well researched and historical book. Do not humans understand that they must in the judgment in the trial of ones life, before the Creator and his heavenly holy host to answer the sin of bloodletting, death, destruction, and not be aware of spiritual cognizance as every night dreams we are experience have a life experience truth.

Robert Fisk-- the incredibly skillful and honest, and much honored British journalist--must be added to the short list of required reading on the Middle East, not only for his previous magnum opus, "Pity the Nation," but for this gigantic tome, "The Great War for Civilisation." By "short list" I mean the recent trilogy by Chalmers Johnson (starting with "Blowback" and ending with "Nemesis"), the writings of Lewis Lapham, McGovern and Polk, and a dozen or so others.
The devil is in the details, for Mr. Fisk. As with some of the Vietnam reporting (Michael Herr's "Dispatches," let's say), Fisk's "Great War" is something I can take only in small doses: it's too real and visceral, too
intense, too devasting to the psyche, to stay with for very long at a time. Besides the direct accounts of
battle (and other forms of devastation and insult to the human psyche), I should mention Fisk's tone of appropriately withering scorn for imperial power: for example, he has some choice words for Mr. Blair
and our own former Madame Secretary Albright--either in "Pity the Nation" or "The Great War," I forget
just which.
Regarding Madeleine Albright, I recall discovering--to my dismay, of course--that she believed the
deaths --largely due to malnourishment-- of thousands of Iraqi children during the sanctions imposed upon Iraq by the U.N., between the two Iraq wars, were (I'm paraphrasing from memory) a sad but necessary price to pay.
The moral, in general, of such disclosures and revelations, for me at least, is that even though I am a
voracious reader, rather too-well educated, a poet, philosophy professor, and so forth, I am not all that much
unlike the masses of Americans who are taken in by our sheep-like fourth estate, who in turn are bland
and passive consumers of the smoke-and-mirrors displays of the Bush administration.
I am too accustomed, for instance, to quite intelligent students commenting as follows, as a matter of course: "I have heard reports that our journalists in Iraq concentrate too much on the bad news, while neglecting all the good that our soldiers are doing over there."
Doubtless many of our young men and women in uniform (leaving aside the incredible numbers of mercenaries fighting in Iraq) are well-intentioned, brave, sincere, honest, and good souls. But they are misled.
How often does the American viewer of television get to witness something as honest as Robert McNeill's
recent series, "America at a Crossroads"? Or "Frontline"? Of course I now reveal my liberal bias--shame on
me! ("My bad," as the professional basketball players say.)
Robert Fisk is doing what he was born to do, as his brief biographical revelations recently on C-SPAN have shown: at a very tender age, when his W. W. I. veteran father was revisiting Europe's battle sites with him, he recognized his true vocational calling. He is literate, learned, direct, 'out front', lacking in sham and egocentrism (a refreshing alternative to our gas bag pundits, such as Christopher Hitchins, or Bill O'Reilley, or Tucker Carlson--just to name a duke's mixture of the 'usual suspects').
All I can say in closing is that any reader interested in the mess our country is in, in Iraq, or in the Middle East region, in general--and what person in the United States, what person of good will and a certain degree of maturity, what good citizen, is not interested in that?--such a reader can do no better than to open Mr.
Fisk's latest book and read a few pages.
After all, the only thing worse than burrowing headlong into such tragedy might be to try and ignore it altogether, like the proverbial ostrich. Robert Fisk has helped us all to assume, partially, at least, that proper burden of responsibility.

Robert Fisk's clarity of memory takes a paint stripper to the lies so called western civilization is predominantly composed of. Fear and loathing in the Middle East. Flames of truth characterize the honesty and humanity with which this towering journalist reveals events from behind our propagandistic fog. A must read, a cornerstone of modern history on the scale of Vico, Lawrence and Michelet.

Fisk's journal, and I do mean journal, is a tale almost too massive to believe. How one journalist could have had the experiences related in this book is a tribute to earnest journalism. While overlong and in need of editing, I still found myself reading every word waiting for the next.
Also, of course is the issue that Fisk supplies a necessary corrective to typical Western and biased pro-Israeli history in the US. No one comes out of this book in very good shape--Arabs, palestinians, Israelis, or Americans. For those who really want to know "why do they hate us" I can think of no better place to start.

This is the most intelligent and informed commentary I have ever read about the Middle East.

The creation of the modern Middle East after World War I resulted in an unstable configuration that has brought death and misery to millions of the inhabitants of the region. Monstrous client states, supported at first by the British and the French, and later by the United States, have inflicted incalculable suffering on their own citizens, either through domestic oppression or through wars with other states. Much of this suffering has been concealed from the American public by its government and by the failure of mainstream news media.

Fisk's goal is to educate his readers in the real, very personal suffering endured by the inhabitants of the Middle East. By making this suffering visible, by making it real, by making the names and personalities of the victims prominent, he hopes to awaken his readers to the consequences of uncritical support for Israel and Saudi Arabia. He castigates the mainstream media for failing to communicate this story accurately, and shows how U.S. media is in fact a form of propaganda.

Fisk weaves together several stories simultaneously: (1) a conventional academic history of various events in the Middle East; (2) a personal account of his experiences as a journalist in the Middle East over the past thirty years, including much combat experience; (3) a subthread about his father, who served in World War I. Some reviewers have found this approach confusing, but I found it quite captivating.

Many reviewers feel this book is too long. I disagree. The wealth of detail is necessary to communicate the full horror of what is happening in the Middle East and to convince the reader that something must be done. I found this book completely engaging, with Fisks's personal experiences quite riveting. I spent six weeks reading this book, to the exclusion of most of my regular reading. The book contains extensive notes, a bibliography, a chronology, and an index.

Some reviewers complain that Fisk proposes no solutions for the problems he depicts. The following solutions occurred to me after reading this book: (1) The U.S. must no longer give uncritical support to Israel. Israel (and the U.S.) must conform to international law and U.N. resolutions. (2) The U.S. must not offer uncritical support to Saudi Arabia, or other dictatorial client states (as it did to Saddam Hussein). (3) The U.S. must not attack Iran.

Fisk has been criticized as "anti-Semitic" because of his criticism of Israel. Anyone who actually reads this book will see Fisk's sympathy and compassion for victims of the Holocaust and of Palestinian violence, and he quotes Israeli journalists to support his criticisms of Israeli policy. Fisk is critical of all those who contribute to violence in the Middle East, and he celebrates whenever possible those heroes who try to protect the helpless from the violence around them.

Some reviewers have complained that this book should have been two volumes, that the typeface is too small, that the book is too heavy. These are all minor quibbles. I was able to purchase my paperback copy for about twenty dollars (US), which is a bargain for a book of this size. As a professional editor, I have a few quibbles of my own: (1) Fisk's copy editor omits the terminal comma of a series, which is disconcerting (see University of Chicago Press "Manual of Style" [15h ed.], section 6.19); (2) the typesetter didn't handle ellipses properly. But....

Robert Fisk risked his life countless times to obtain the information in this book. Read it and use it to change your country's direction. Better than anything else, it explains why "they hate us". We need to learn and to change.

Sorry unlike so many other reviewers on this site I struggled to find much that was worthy in all 1284 pages.

Fisk's early work on Iran and Algeria culminating in the first Gulf War is without a doubt exceptional. His insights into the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war are a fascinating read. His watershed moment seems to be the downing of the Iranian airliner by the USS Vincenes (sic) which results in, among other things, his resignation from the London Times, and career with the left leaning Independent. What follows in the rest of the book is slow downward spiral of righteousness in which the reader is subject to sermon-like lectures about the evils of the west and its impact on the Middle East.

Fisk reserves a special place in hell for Israel, Israelis and jews in general (a place he says is built on someone elses land, and a people who are responsible for either prompting the catastrophe in the middle east or suprressing the record of genocide in the world) bordering on the rabid. It would be to easy to call this rant anti-semitic, but balanced it is not.

Acknowledging is apparent bias Fisk defends himself by reference to an Israeli journalist he has befriended (Amir Hass) who has concoted the theory that journalists are not meant to be objective but rather monitors of the centres of power.

A great theory but in a region full of prophets of doom another one is probably not needed.

I'll begin with a little true story. A very good friend of mine, best man at my wedding in fact, was working as a teacher in Lebanon a few years ago. He loved working there until the day he nearly died. That was when he almost became collateral damage, as it's quaintly known, when the block of flats he was living in was attacked by some, no doubt, highly sophisticated rocket fired from an Israeli helicopter. Apparently some wanted PLO man was supposed to be in the building and it was just tough luck that he happened to be around when the missile was launched.
Anyway he lived to tell the tale, but headed home in order to extend his life expectancy. Now it seems to me that this is what a lot of Fisk's magnum opus is all about. How innocent people are randomly slaughtered for no particular good reason at all and the problem is that the number of such people is vast. By dipping backwards and forwards over the last 150 years or so Fisk very convincingly makes the points that history repeats itself and then that few, if any lessons, seemed to have been learnt from the mistakes made in the past. His father is repeatedly used as a touchstone throughout the book,because he took part in the senseless mass slaughter of World War 1.
And so we come to today and strangely many of the really efficient mass killers over the last 50 years, who invade other countries and destroy homes and the means to live and maybe even steal the land too( and we all know who they are don't we ? ) are the GOOD GUYS !!! Well that's if you look at most newspapers or watch television.One thing that Fisk forces you to face up to is the fact that the, ahem, free world is, for the most part, shackled to a truly supine and mendacious media.
All I know is that if anyone can read this book and not feel shocked and deeply ashamed at the conduct of the supposedly Great Powers then he or she must possess a blunted moral sensibility. Going back to my bombed-out friend for a moment, you might be interested to know that his interview with either Sky or CNN or Fox etc,you know the plucky if not to say lucky western survivor was never aired. He was convinced this was because he refused to accept the line being fed to him that it must be truly scary living in Lebanon and instead replied that he loved being there, found the people delightful and was extremely angry to have enjoyed a near death experience courtesy of peace-loving Israel. As Fisk repeatedly says in his book, victims of such attacks wherever they take place are either, obviously terrorists or terrorist sympathisers or merely collateral damage. The fact that by far the greatest proportion of the victims in such attacks are totally innocent is conveniently passed over by the perpetrators, since they are, of course, peace loving democrats, who just happen to have sufficient armaments to destroy the world a few times over. Needless to say,this situation is diametrically reversed, when even one or two of the good guys die. These people have usually been killed by evil men etc etc and although we are god-fearing folk our revenge will be swift and terrible. It happens time and time again. The so-called Great Powers find it very easy to justify the random slaughter of their perceived enemies or for that matter friends. And as I write this process continues in Iraq, where to date an unbelievable number of Iraquis have died and their deaths glossed over by their western saviours. Quite how bombing the country into the middle ages and killing hundreds of thousands of the local people is supposed to be progress is a puzzle too far for many.
Yes the book is long, but Fisk is never less than highly literate and anyone who enjoys reading will fly through this book. It's not a tough read at all. It is however a devastating one and I would implore anyone with even an ounce of interest in the modern world to read this book. You will be rewarded many times over.

Robert Fisk has somehow survived being in the middle of the action in every major Middle East conflict in the past 20 to 25 years. His reporting is very personal, very graphic and very disturbing (if you are open-minded about the US effort in Iraq and the Middle East). Fisk is, to be sure, opinionated. And his opinions will not sit well with either the pro- Israel or pro-US-in-Iraq crowds.
It took real effort to finish this book. It is overly long and consistently repetitive. The first-hand violence descriptions beg to be skimmed after the first couple of dozen such passages. Not that each death is not important, but I found myself saying, OK I got the message.
Fisk is a reporter; his style is to report what he has seen and been told. And he has seen an extraordinary array of events all over the Middle East. The Iran/Iraq war (8 years, poison gas,suicide charges), the Islamic revolution in Iran, Gulf War I, Afghanistan, Gulf War II, Lebanon vs. Israel. He reports on all of these, both in a macro and micro sense. Plus, his one-on-one talks with Bin Laden, the Turks attempted extermination of the Armenian population- and more.
Fisk's book may well change your view of the likelihood of a US "victory" in Iraq. You may also feel less sympathetic towards Israel and its occupation of Palestinian lands. If your opinions on these matters are fixed and unchangeable, save your mental health and skip the book. If you decide to plunge ahead, be ready for a long, violent, heart-breaking, stongly opinionated journey. 4 stars instead of 5 based on the book being overly long.

This book is so expansive in its history and written so personally that after you're done you feel not like you read a book, but you have lived through something.
This an excellent account of Middle East history that is truly unbiased, from a dying breed of journalistic integrity.

Works such as this one show us why good journalists who are willing to put themselves at risk to get the real and unvarnished truth are truly so important. If not for men and women like Fisk there would be pages of history that would simply be blank. For filling those pages and giving people a voice and telling their stories, Mr. Fisk should be thanked. This is the most important book I have read in a long time.

This wonderful book is a treasure trove for those seeking to read an unbiased version of the recent history in the Middle East. I loved this book so much, I carried and read this hefty document every day on my train and subway commute to New York, for many months straight. I almost read nothing else, but it was well worth it.
Unbiased, though, is not what a typical Westerner would describe it. That's because Robert does not spare anyone, including the governments of Britain, France, Israel, the Soviet Union, Turkey and the United States. People get especially sensitive after the 9/11 tragedy. He doesn't spare the Muslim leaders, either.
This is a no-nonsense book. It is a brilliant reporter's account of history; genuine, comprehensive, and so meticulous in the details. Unfortunately, most western media is pro-US and pro-Israel. So this book will never be favorably publicized in NY. Actually, I'm amazed that Mr. Fisk is still alive after continually exposing the terrorizing Israeli tactics in the Middle East. God bless you, Robert, and may Lebanon provide you shelter and a peaceful retreat. Please stay safe. See you in Beirut some day. It's an honor and privilege to have you as a guest there.

A very well written book by Robert Fisk. It covers over 30 years of the Middle East from the Iranian Revolution to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and American Invation of Iraq. The book is derived from the notes Fisk wrote while reporting on all these events. A must read to understand Middle Eastern politics.

If you are like me, once you've established your basic opinion on something, you tend to skim the newspapers on the subject, often only reading headlines and maybe the first few paragraphs. So it has been with me and the Middle East conflicts over the last 30 years. However, every so often, a book like this comes out that is so deep, so excellent, and so challenging that it will wipe out all my cozy assumptions and ignite an interest that will carry me for several years at a minimum.

I read this over a period of months with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. It is in my opinion a literary masterpiece by a courageous reporter who is also a true intellectual, steeped in history as well as the stories of people that great journalists seek like air or food. There are so many levels to this book that a review cannot do it justice, but I will try.

First, there is the autobiographical side of this, where Fisk explains his obsession with war and injustice and man's inhumanity to man - it originated with his conflict with his father, a WWI veteran, which leads to his search for the truth and the need to document the lives of those who suffer. At times very moving, always vivid, this in many ways is the core of the book's theme.

Second, there are the historical analyses of conflicts starting with WWI and its aftermath - the Balfour Declaration - that saw the carve-up of the Ottoman Empire and the beginnings of the modern Middle East. This covers a huge range of countries, from Algeria to Turkey and Iran. You can see the roots of where the conflct started with the end of Turkish authority, how it got complicated by decolonization and the establishment of Israel, and how it has evolved into an increasingly murderous direction. Because of the superficial grasp I had of the history, I learned a tremendous amount from this, including from the first systematic account of the Armenian genocide, to the civil wars in virtually all the rest of the countries covered. Not everything is covered, however, only what Fisk investigated on assignment. In a sense, he is showing how similar the recent actions - even the rhetoric - of Bush are to the first forays of European imperialists in the 1920s.

Third, there is a political analysis of the root of the current crisis that increasingly pits the US and Israel against the Moslem world. In a nutshell that badly oversimplifies, Fisk argues that the US has always taken Israel's side uncriticially and unequivocably, which Moslems have taken as unfair and inimical to their causes and civilization; the West always makes expedient promises that it never intends to keep, while allowing the Israelis free rein to be as brutal as they wish with the Palestinians. This, Fisk argues, has contributed to their hostility to the West, even to terrorism. Fisk also laments how this cannot even be questionned - he recounts how often he is often accused of anti-semitism for opinions contrary to the pro-Israeli view. Agree or disagree, this gets you to think more deeply than one is accustomed to about this conflict, if your major source is American newspapers, that is.

Fourth, this book is a critique of his profession, which now largely has been "embedded" with US soldiers in the Irak conflict. Here he sets a high standard indeed, recounting his adventures and near death experiences while doing his job - he was attacked by a mob in Afghanistan, which the Wall Street Journal said he deserved for his "self hatred", that is, his critical comments of Bush's policies! I was shocked to learn that CNN now requires its experts on the scene to submit all comments in advance for "approval" by editors in the US, though had suspected it was like that given how canned CNN has come to sound. While praising a few, Fisk also takes many to task for laxness and sleazy intrigues to their own advantage. In particular, he is very hard on American journalists, most of whom he sees as uncritical and even tendentious in their coverage.

Fifth, there are trenchant analyses of recent events that are as provocative as they are shocking. For example, Fisk believes that the Rabin-Arafat Oslo accords were so slanted in Israel's favor that it was doomed to fail, which really shocked me as it had been universally hailed in the newspapers I read as the best peace possible, etc. But there is also the Algerian revoltes of the 1990s, Beirut, of course, and the many wars of the lsat 30 years. In one section, he gives a fascinating analysis on the relation of Saudi Arabia's brand of conservative Islam, Wahabism, with the Taliban's ideology. It was all a perspective new to me and exactly what I was hoping to find.

Finally, there are amazing personal stories he finds, which make it into mainstream news, from interviews with Bin Laden to a fascinating inquiry to find who manufactured the missiles that killed innocent Palestinians. The book is packed with stories like these far too numerous to count. They can be tragic and cruel, meaningless deaths at the hands of those who are rarely punished.

All in all, reading this was wonderful. He covers the last 30 years in detail, roughly coinciding with the time that I became an obsessive follower of current events. So it is like a review of everything I read about - too quickly - in the Middle East over that time. Every page made me think more deeply on the area than I have in a long time, food for thought that will last me a long long time. Now I will have to read more....much more.

Warmly recommended. Fisk in my view is equally hard on everyone from an ethical point of view and is not biased as he has been accused of being. I will add his newspaper, the Independent, to my list of daily must skims!

Note: I have learned that Fisk is unpopular with his fellow journalists. Several of them who know him - and admit there is a lot of professional jealousy about him - have told me that he is known for making things up or embellishing. While I cannot prove this one way or the other, my sense is that his writing rings true.

If you are like me, once you've established your basic opinion on something, you tend to skim the newspapers on the subject, often only reading headlines and maybe the first few paragraphs. So it has been with me and the Middle East conflicts over the last 30 years. However, every so often, a book like this comes out that is so deep, so excellent, and so challenging that it will wipe out all my cozy assumptions and ignite an interest that will carry me for several years at a minimum.

I read this over a period of months with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. It is in my opinion a literary masterpiece by a courageous reporter who is also a true intellectual, steeped in history as well as the stories of people that great journalists seek like air or food. There are so many levels to this book that a review cannot do it justice, but I will try.

First, there is the autobiographical side of this, where Fisk explains his obsession with war and injustice and man's inhumanity to man - his conflict with his father, a WWI veteran, leads to his search for the truth and the need to document the lives of those who suffer. At times very moving, always vivid, this in many ways is the core of the book's theme.

Second, there are the historical analyses of conflicts starting with WWI and its aftermath - the Balfour Declaration - that saw the carve-up of the Ottoman Empire and the beginnings of the modern Middle East. This covers a huge range of countries, from Algeria to Turkey and Iran. You can see the roots of where the conflct started with the end of Turkish authority, how it got complicated by decolonization and the establishment of Israel, and how it has evolved into an increasingly murderous direction. Because of the superficial grasp I had of the history, I learned a tremendous amount from this, including from the first systematic account of the Armenian genocide, to the civil wars in virtually all the rest of the countries covered. Not everything is covered, however, only what Fisk investigated on assignment. In a sense, he is showing how similar the recent actions - even the rhoetoric - of Bush are to the first forays of European imperialists in the 1920s.

Third, there is a political analysis of the root of the current crisis that increasingly pits the US and Israel against the Moslem world. In a nutshell that badly oversimplifies, Fisk argues that the US has always taken Israel's side uncriticially and unequivocably, which Moslems have taken as unfair and inimical to their causes and civilization; the West always makes expedient promises that it never intends to keep, while allowing the Israelis free rein to be as brutal as they wish with the Palestinians. Fisk also laments how this cannot even be questionned - he recounts how often he is often accused of anti-semitism for opinions contrary to the pro-Israeli view. Agree or disagree, this gets you to think more deeply than one is accustomed about this conflict.

Fourth, this book is a critique of his profession, which now largely has been "embedded" with US soldiers in the Irak conflict. Here he sets a high standard indeed, recounting his adventures and near death experiences while doing his job - he was attacked by a mob in Afghanistan, which the Wall Street Journal said he deserved for his "self hatred", that is, his critical comments of Bush's policies! I was shocked to learn that CNN now requires its experts on the scene to submit all comments in advance for "approval" by editors in the US, though had suspected it was like that given how canned CNN has come to sound. Whle praising a few, Fisk also takes many to task for laxness and sleazy intrigues to their own advantage. In particular, he is very hard on American journalists, most of whom he sees as uncritical and even tendentious in their coverage.

Fifth, there are trenchant analyses of recent events that are as provocative as they are shocking. For example, Fisk believes that the Rabin-Arafat Oslo accords were so slanted in Israel's favor that it was doomed to fail, which really shocked me as it had been universally hailed in the newspapers I read as the best peace possible, etc. But there is also the Algerian revoltes of the 1990s, Beirut, of course, and the many wars of the lsat 30 years. In one section, he gives a fascinating analysis on the relation of Saudi Arabia's brand of conservative Islam, Wahabism, with the Taliban's ideology. It was all a perspective new to me and exactly what I was hoping to find.

Finally, there are amazing personal stories he finds, which make it into mainstream news, from interviews with Bin Laden to a fascinating inquiry to find who manufactured the missiles that killed innocent Palestinians. The book is packed with stories like these far too numerous to count. They can be tragic and cruel, meaningless deaths at the hands of those who are rarely punished.

All in all, reading this was wonderful. He covers the las