Tag Archives: Middle East

Lost to the West

Posted on February 14, 2016 by smellincoffee

Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire that Rescued Western Civilization © 2009 Lars Brownsworth 329 pages The Roman empire not not fade quietly into history in 474, when a Gothic warlord decided to run the city of Rome directly instead … Continue reading →

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This week: the usual suspects

Posted on February 8, 2016 by smellincoffee

Well, dear readers, it’s another month! I have a serious itch for science and science fiction at the moment, so I have no less than five potential science reads stacked up now, and three potential SF books. Among the numbers…Domesticated: Evolution in … Continue reading →

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Destiny, Disrupted

Posted on January 12, 2016 by smellincoffee

Destiny, Disruted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes© 2009 Tamim Ansary416 pages When Tamim Ansary was a boy, he loved history. Specifically, he loved narrativehistory, the kind of drama that brought the past to life.  The problem was that the … Continue reading →

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The Lost History of Christianity

Posted on November 9, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia — And How It Died© 2008 Philip Jenkins315 pages For the first millennium of the church’s history, Europe was less … Continue reading →

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The Kite Runner

Posted on October 7, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Kite Runner © 2003 Khaled Hosseini 400 pages . The Kite Runner is a stirring story of betrayal and redemption set in Afghanistan as the country is destroyed through revolution, war, and the takeover by Taliban militias.  The novel … Continue reading →

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The Egyptians

Posted on September 26, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Egyptians© 1997 Barbara Watterson368 pages “We stand where Caesar and Napoleon stood, and remember that fifty centuries look down upon us; where the Father of History came four hundred years before Caesar, and heard the tales that were to … Continue reading →

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The Spice Route

Posted on September 1, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Spice Route© 2005 John Keay308 pages Spock was right. Having a thing is often not as pleasant as wanting a thing. It is not logical, but it is often true. Such was the case with the spice trade, which so … Continue reading →

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Before the Throne

Posted on July 28, 2015 by smellincoffee

Before the Throne: A Modern Arabic Novel© 1982 Naguib Mafouz, trans. 2008 Raymond Stock128 pages In ancient Egyptian mythology, the souls of the dead were weighed before the gods. In Before the Throne, the dead pharaohs, generals, leaders, and dictator-presidents … Continue reading →

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The Great Cities in History

Posted on July 23, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Great Cities in History© 2009 ed. John Julius Norwich302 pages             The Great Cities in History takes readers on a literary world tour, traveling through space and time to visit the greatest political bodies in history.  Civilization is nothing … Continue reading →

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