Destruction of a Nation and The Birth of Arab Spring Revolutions

This frantic and relevant book by Harper Bon Granger serves as a crucial introduction to the current conflicts in the Middle East, from those in Syria and Saudi Arabia to the catastrophe in Turkey. Harper takes us through the enormous shifts in actors, politics, and economics in the Middle East over the past five years by combining exciting vignettes from street-level reporting that give readers a feel of what is at stake with a bird's-eye view of global geopolitics. She says, "Neither in the back alleys of Tahrir Square nor in the souk of Aleppo was the Arab Spring vanquished. It was soundly crushed in the palaces of Riyadh, Ankara, Washington, DC, and Paris.

This book's central section examines the unrest in the three nations where ISIS first appeared and is now thriving: Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. The history of the area begins and ends here. What would the Middle East look like after ISIS? Who will pay attention to the complaints of the populace? Can the region have a future other than the reemergence of the security state or the maintenance of monarchies? The Death of the Nation examines these important themes by putting Middle Eastern movements in the larger perspective of revolutionary history.