The Great War of Civilization: The Conquest of the middle East Robert Fisk During the thirty years that award-winning journalist Robert Fisk has been reporting on the Middle east, he has covered every major event in the region - from the Algerian Civil War to the Iranian Revolution, from the American hostage crisis in Beirut (as one of only two Western journalists in the city at the time) to the Iran-Iraq War, from the Russian invasion of Afghanistan to Israel's invasion to Lebanon, from the Gulf War to the invasion and ongoing war in Iraq. Now he brings his knowledge, his first hand experience and his intimate understanding of the Middle East to a book that addresses the full complexity of its political history and its current state of affairs… This is also a book of lucid, incisive analysis. Reaching back into the long history of invasion, occupation and colonization in the region. Fisk sets forth this information in a way that makes clear how history of injustice "has condemned the Middle East to war". He lays open the role of the West in the seemingly endless strife and warfare in the region, traces the growth of the West's involvement and influence there over the past one hundred years, and outlines the West's record of support for some of the most ruthless leaders in the Middle East. He chronicles the ever-more-powerful military presence of the United States and tracks the consequent, increasingly virulent anti-Western - and particularly anti-American - sentiment among the region's Muslim populations. Fisk interweaves this history with his own vividly rendered experience in Iraq, Iran. Afghanistan. Algeria, Israel, Palestine and Lebanon - on the front lines ; behind the scenes ; in the streets of cities and villages ; and inside military headquarters, the hideouts of guerrillas, the homes of ordinary citizens. Here, too, are indelible portraits of Osama Bin Laden, Ayatollah Khomeini and Yassir Arafat, among others - all of whom he has met face-to-face - revelatory in their apprehension of the individuals and the ideologies they represent. Finally, The Great War for Civilization is the story of journalists in War: of their attempts to report the first, impartial drafts of history, to monitor the centers of power, to challenge authority ("especially… when governments and politicians take us to war") and to battle an increasingly partisan worldwide media in their determination to report the truth.