Description

“[A] sweeping and authoritative historical past” (The New York Occasions Ebook Review), Black Wave is an extraordinary and impressive exam of the way the up to date Center East unraveled and why it began with the pivotal yr of 1979.

Kim Ghattas seamlessly weaves in combination historical past, geopolitics, and tradition to ship a gripping learn of the in large part unexplored tale of the competition among among Saudi Arabia and Iran, born from the sparks of the 1979 Iranian revolution and fueled via American coverage.

With bright tale-telling, intensive ancient analysis and on-the-flooring reporting, Ghattas dispels popular truths a couple of area she calls house. She explores how Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, as soon as allies and dual pillars of US technique within the area, turned into mortal enemies after 1979. She displays how they used and distorted faith in a contest that went well past geopolitics. Feeding intolerance, suppressing cultural expression, and inspiring sectarian violence from Egypt to Pakistan, the struggle for cultural supremacy ended in Iran’s fatwa in opposition to creator Salman Rushdie, the assassination of numerous intellectuals, the delivery of teams like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the September eleventh terrorist assaults, and the upward thrust of ISIS.

Ghattas introduces us to a riveting solid of characters whose lives have been upended via the geopolitical drama over 4 many years: from the Pakistani tv anchor who defied her usa’s dictator, to the Egyptian novelist thrown in prison for indecent writings the entire method to the homicide of journalist Jamal Khashoggi within the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Black Wave is each an intimate and sweeping historical past of the area and can considerably modify perceptions of the Center East.