Wilford, H: America's Great Game The Cia's Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East

"Publishers Weekly""Wilford runs through a sordid record of American imperialist pretensions, replete with coups, countercoups, intrigue, subterfuge, non-diplomatic back-channels, and convoluted plots that sometimes 'descended into farce' - including attempts at 'the possible use of hypnotism in political speech-making.'... Wilford's narrative of these ambitious imperialists and their machinations is a cautionary tale of 'masculine adventure, ' or as the case may be, elite misadventure." Eugene Rogan, author of "The Arabs: A History""A gripping account of how America's best and brightest, with the best of intentions, lost the Arabs and Iranians at the start of the Cold War. An outstanding book, more relevant today than ever." Salim Yaqub, University of California, Santa Barbara, author of "Containing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine and the Middle East""From the grim vantage of our own era, it is easy to forget--or startling to learn for the first time--that the CIA's interactions with the Middle East began on a more hopeful basis, and were often spearheaded by individuals who strongly sympathized with the political aspirations of Arabs and Muslims. Through exhaustive research, keen insight, and vivid and witty prose, Hugh Wilford brilliantly recreates the lives and milieus of the adventurers, scholars, policymakers, and polemicists who forged America's covert relations with the countries and peoples of the Middle East. Without romanticizing their exploits, or overlooking their moments of hubris, obtuseness, and insensitivity, Wilford helps us see the world as they saw it and, perhaps, better understand the world they made. This is collective biography at its best." Ian Johnson, author of "A Mosque in Munich: the Nazis, the CIA and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood""Filled with rich anecdotes and unbelievably larger-than-life characters, Hugh Wilford's book is long overdue. Readers have long been familiar with Britain's